Provena

Context governance for agentic AI systems.

Your AI agent just made a decision based on data from 6 different sources. Can you tell me which ones? Can you prove the data wasn't tampered with? Can you verify it was still current?

Provena adds tamper-evident audit trails to any AI agent's context pipeline — in 3 lines of Python.

from provena import ContextTrail

trail = ContextTrail()

@trail.track(source="retriever")
def search(query):
    return retriever.search(query)

Every call to search() is now logged with a SHA-256 content hash, provenance validation, and a hash-chained audit trail that detects tampering.

Why Provena?

AGT governs what agents DO. Guardrails AI governs what agents SAY. Provena governs what agents KNOW.

No existing tool governs the context input layer. Provena fills this gap with:

• Tamper-evident audit trails — SHA-256 hash-chained (Merkle-style) logging with optional HMAC signing
• Provenance validation — Verify that context carries proper source metadata (VALID / MISSING / INCOMPLETE)
• Freshness checking — Detect stale context via metadata timestamps and regex temporal detection (FRESH / STALE / UNKNOWN)
• Policy enforcement — Block, warn, or log governance violations with configurable rules
• Multi-agent governance — Aggregate and query across multiple agent trails with handoff tracking
• Any context source — RAG retrievers, tool outputs, agent messages, memory recalls, MCP resources
• Sub-1ms overhead — Pure Python, no ML models, no downloads
• Zero core dependencies — Core library uses only the Python standard library

Install

pip install provena                # core (zero dependencies)
pip install provena[cli]           # + CLI tools (click, rich)
pip install provena[otel]          # + OpenTelemetry export
pip install provena[postgres]      # + PostgreSQL backend
pip install provena[mcp]           # + MCP server for governance-aware agents
pip install provena[pdf]           # + PDF compliance reports
pip install provena[yaml]          # + YAML config file support
pip install provena[all]           # core + cli + otel + postgres + mcp + pdf + yaml

Framework adapters (install individually):

pip install provena[langchain]     # LangChain callback
pip install provena[llamaindex]    # LlamaIndex postprocessor
pip install provena[crewai]        # CrewAI event listener
pip install provena[autogen]       # AutoGen hook
pip install provena[openai-agents] # OpenAI Agents SDK hooks
pip install provena[google-adk]    # Google ADK callbacks

Quick Start

from provena import ContextTrail, ProvenanceMetadata
from datetime import datetime, timezone

trail = ContextTrail(storage_path="audit.db")

# Track any function that produces context
@trail.track(source="retriever")
def search(query):
    return retriever.search(query)

@trail.track(source="tool:pricing_api")
def get_price(product_id):
    return api.get(f"/price/{product_id}")

# Manual logging with provenance metadata
trail.log(
    content="The enterprise plan costs $499/month.",
    source="tool:pricing_api",
    provenance=ProvenanceMetadata(
        source_url="https://api.example.com/pricing",
        created_at=datetime.now(timezone.utc),
    ),
)

# Verify the audit trail hasn't been tampered with
verdict = trail.verify_chain()
print(f"Chain intact: {verdict.intact}")
print(f"Total records: {verdict.total_records}")

Policy Enforcement

Move from observe-only to enforce. Block stale or unverified context before it reaches the LLM:

from provena import ContextTrail, freshness_check, provenance_check, EnforcementLevel

trail = ContextTrail(
    storage_path="audit.db",
    policies=[
        provenance_check(status="MISSING", enforcement=EnforcementLevel.BLOCK),
        freshness_check(status="STALE", enforcement=EnforcementLevel.WARN),
    ],
)

Three enforcement levels: LOG (record only), WARN (callback + pass through), BLOCK (raise PolicyViolation). Blocked entries are still logged for compliance — the audit trail shows what was rejected and why.

Multi-Agent Governance

Aggregate governance across multiple agents with handoff tracking:

from provena import ContextTrail, TrailAggregator

researcher = ContextTrail(storage_path="researcher.db")
writer = ContextTrail(storage_path="writer.db")

agg = TrailAggregator()
agg.add(researcher, label="researcher")
agg.add(writer, label="writer")

# Record agent-to-agent handoffs
agg.record_handoff(from_label="researcher", to_label="writer", record_id=5)

# Query across all agents
summary = agg.summary()
gaps = agg.detect_gaps()  # find missing provenance, broken chains, unlinked handoffs

CLI

Install with pip install provena[cli], then:

# Verify hash chain integrity
provena --db audit.db verify
# PASS — Chain intact (42 records verified)

# Query the audit log
provena --db audit.db audit --source retriever --format json

# Generate a governance report
provena --db audit.db report --format text

# Quick summary
provena --db audit.db summary

# Retention management
provena --db audit.db retain --max-age 180 --dry-run

# Start MCP server for governance-aware agents
provena mcp serve --db audit.db

# Migrate between backends
provena migrate --from audit.db --to postgresql://localhost/provena

For HMAC-signed trails, pass --signing-key or set PROVENA_SIGNING_KEY.

Integrations

LangChain

from provena.integrations.langchain import ProvenaCallback

chain = RetrievalQA.from_chain_type(
    llm=llm,
    retriever=retriever,
    callbacks=[ProvenaCallback(trail=trail)],
)

LlamaIndex

from provena.integrations.llamaindex import ProvenaPostprocessor

query_engine = index.as_query_engine(
    node_postprocessors=[ProvenaPostprocessor(trail=trail)]
)

CrewAI

from provena.integrations.crewai import ProvenaCrewListener

listener = ProvenaCrewListener(trail=trail)
crew = Crew(agents=[...], tasks=[...])
crew.kickoff()

OpenAI Agents SDK

from provena.integrations.openai_agents import ProvenaRunHooks

result = Runner.run(agent, input="...", hooks=ProvenaRunHooks(trail))

OpenTelemetry

trail = ContextTrail(
    storage_path="audit.db",
    otel_enabled=True,
    otel_service_name="my-agent",
)
# Every log() call now emits an OTel span with governance attributes

Configuration Files

# TOML (zero dependencies on Python 3.11+)
trail = ContextTrail(config="provena.toml")

# YAML (requires provena[yaml])
trail = ContextTrail(config="trail.yaml")

Architecture

Your Application
|
|  Retriever ---+
|  Tool Call ---+
|  Agent Msg ---+---> ContextTrail ------> LLM Context Window
|  Memory    ---+        |
|  MCP       ---+        |
|                  +-----+----------------------+
|                  | ProvenanceValidator         |
|                  | FreshnessChecker            |
|                  | PolicyEngine (block/warn)   |
|                  | HashChain (SHA-256 / HMAC)  |
|                  | WriteBuffer (10K+ entries/s)|
|                  | SQLite / PostgreSQL Backend |
|                  | OTel Exporter              |
|                  +----------------------------+
|
|  TrailAggregator (multi-agent)
|  RetentionEngine (lifecycle)
|  ComplianceReport (EU AI Act / OWASP)
|  MCP Server (governance-aware agents)

Compliance

Provena maps directly to EU AI Act requirements:

Also addresses OWASP ASI06 (Memory & Context Poisoning).

Generate compliance reports: provena --db audit.db report --format pdf

See the full compliance documentation.

Documentation

Full documentation at rajfirke.github.io/provena — guides, API reference, integration docs, and compliance mapping.

Contributing

We welcome contributions! See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup, architecture guide, and PR process.

Please read our Code of Conduct before participating.

License

Apache 2.0