# JSON output and exit status

When verification or auditing produces a plugin result, `--json` and
`--console json` write the same JSON value to stdout without human status lines
or ANSI styling. Only `--json` also selects conda's JSON error reporter for an
argument, input, configuration, or command setup failure. Those conda error
objects are outside the contracts on this page.

Every top-level `conda-sigstore` result has a `version`. Consumers must select
the contract by that integer. The current verification and audit contract is
version `1`.

## Verification result version 1

The verification result always has these fields:

```json
{
  "version": 1,
  "artifact": "example-1.0-0.conda",
  "artifact_sha256": "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa",
  "sidecar_sha256": "bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb",
  "channel": "https://conda.example.org/team",
  "status": "verified",
  "authorization": "not-evaluated",
  "expected_signer": null,
  "prefix_sidecar": false,
  "evidence": [],
  "failures": []
}
```

| Field | Type | Contract |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `version` | integer | Exactly `1` |
| `artifact` | string | Package filename without its local input path |
| `artifact_sha256` | string or `null` | Lowercase SHA-256 computed from the archive, or an installed record digest when no archive is retained |
| `sidecar_sha256` | string or `null` | Lowercase SHA-256 of the exact bundle or sidecar input bytes, or `null` when no sidecar was loaded |
| `channel` | string or `null` | Credential-free normalized channel or audit channel label |
| `status` | verification status | Overall result from the enumeration below |
| `authorization` | authorization result | Result of an explicit signer requirement, not channel authorization |
| `expected_signer` | signer object or `null` | Exact `identity` and `issuer` pair supplied to `verify` |
| `prefix_sidecar` | boolean | Whether the selected input used Prefix.dev's `.v0.sigs` convention |
| `evidence` | array of evidence objects | Cryptographically authenticated bundle contents |
| `failures` | array of failure objects | Rejected bundles and verification-stage failures |

An `expected_signer` object always has this shape:

```json
{
  "identity": "https://github.com/example/project/.github/workflows/release.yml@refs/tags/v1.0.0",
  "issuer": "https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com"
}
```

### Verification status

| Value | Meaning |
| --- | --- |
| `verified` | At least one cryptographically valid CEP 27 statement binds the exact package and satisfies any explicit signer requirement |
| `missing` | Audit found no advertised `attestations_sha256` field or no explicitly selected Prefix.dev sidecar |
| `retrieval-failed` | Advertised or selected audit evidence was unavailable, oversized, malformed, or did not match its advertised digest |
| `invalid` | No acceptable CEP 27 statement exists because the container, bundle, statement, or artifact binding is invalid or unsupported |
| `untrusted-identity` | A valid CEP 27 statement exists, but its signer does not match the explicit identity and issuer requirement |
| `record-digest-only` | Audit has an installed record digest but no retained package archive to hash and verify |
| `evidence-unavailable` | Required trust material, offline cached evidence, the package archive, or another verification input is unavailable |

### Authorization result

| Value | Meaning |
| --- | --- |
| `not-evaluated` | No explicit signer pair was supplied |
| `verified` | A valid CEP 27 statement has the required signer pair |
| `failed` | An explicit signer pair was supplied and the top-level status is not `verified` |

This field never means that a channel delegated publication authority to the
signer.

## Evidence objects

Every `evidence` item has these fields:

```json
{
  "bundle_index": 0,
  "identity": "https://github.com/example/project/.github/workflows/release.yml@refs/tags/v1.0.0",
  "issuer": "https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com",
  "predicate_type": "https://schemas.conda.org/attestations-publish-1.schema.json",
  "verified": true,
  "timestamps": ["2026-08-10T12:00:00Z"],
  "details": {
    "target_channel": "https://conda.example.org/team"
  }
}
```

| Field | Type | Contract |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `bundle_index` | nonnegative integer | Zero-based position in the sidecar array |
| `identity` | string | Subject Alternative Name from the verified signing certificate |
| `issuer` | string | OIDC issuer from the verified signing certificate |
| `predicate_type` | string or `null` | Parsed in-toto `predicateType`, or `null` when no statement could be parsed |
| `verified` | boolean | Whether checks for this recognized predicate passed |
| `timestamps` | array of strings | Reported verified Rekor integrated times and supported RFC 3161 times, normalized to UTC when possible |
| `details` | object | Predicate-specific facts from one of the variants below |

`bundle_index` identifies a bundle within the input sidecar for diagnostics.
Its position implies no trust, freshness, or preference. Reordering bundles
changes these indices and output order without changing verification or
signer matching decisions.

An evidence object appears only after Sigstore cryptographic verification has
succeeded. `verified: false` means that the authenticated payload type,
statement, predicate, or artifact binding was not accepted. It does not mean
that the certificate identity was unauthenticated.

`details` has one of these variants:

| Predicate result | `predicate_type` | `verified` | `details` |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Valid CEP 27 | CEP 27 predicate URI | `true` | `{"target_channel": string or null}` |
| Valid SLSA Provenance v1 | `https://slsa.dev/provenance/v1` | `true` | `{"subjects": [...], "provenance": {...}}` |
| Invalid or unsupported authenticated payload | string or `null` | `false` | `{}` |

A SLSA `subjects` entry has `name` and `digest`, where `digest` maps algorithm
names to string values. The `provenance` object always has every field shown
here:

```json
{
  "builder": "https://example.org/builder",
  "build_type": "https://example.org/build/v1",
  "invocation": "run-1",
  "materials": [
    {
      "uri": "git+https://example.org/project",
      "digest": {"gitCommit": "abc123"}
    }
  ],
  "external_parameters": {},
  "internal_parameters": {},
  "started_on": "2026-08-10T10:00:00Z",
  "finished_on": "2026-08-10T10:01:00Z"
}
```

`builder` and `build_type` are strings. `invocation`, `started_on`, and
`finished_on` are strings or `null`. `materials` is an array of objects with a
string `uri` and string-to-string `digest` mapping. `external_parameters` and
`internal_parameters` are JSON objects. The plugin reports these facts without
assigning a SLSA level.

## Failure objects

Every failure has `code` and `message`. `bundle_index` is included only when
the failure belongs to one sidecar element:

```json
{
  "code": "invalid-cep27",
  "message": "subject sha256 does not match the package",
  "bundle_index": 1
}
```

| Field | Type | Contract |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `code` | failure code | Stable machine identifier from the enumeration below |
| `message` | string | Diagnostic text whose wording may gain detail |
| `bundle_index` | nonnegative integer, optional | Sidecar position responsible for the failure |

Version 1 can emit these failure codes:

| Code | Meaning |
| --- | --- |
| `artifact-changed` | The artifact SHA-256 changed while direct verification was running |
| `artifact-digest-mismatch` | A retained archive does not match its installed package record |
| `digest-mismatch` | Sidecar bytes do not match repodata `attestations_sha256` |
| `evidence-unavailable` | Trust material or another input required to verify evidence is unavailable |
| `invalid-bundle` | Sigstore bundle parsing or cryptographic verification failed |
| `invalid-cep27` | CEP 27 structure, filename, digest, or target-channel binding failed |
| `invalid-attestations-sha256` | Repodata `attestations_sha256` is not exactly 64 lowercase hexadecimal characters |
| `invalid-provenance` | SLSA Provenance v1 structure or artifact binding failed |
| `invalid-response` | A sidecar fetch implementation returned a value other than bytes |
| `invalid-sidecar` | Sidecar JSON, duplicate-key handling, or bundle-array structure is invalid |
| `invalid-statement` | The authenticated payload is not a valid in-toto Statement v1 |
| `invalid-url` | A package or sidecar URL is invalid or uses an unsupported scheme |
| `missing-attestations` | An audit record does not advertise `attestations_sha256` |
| `missing-publish-attestation` | Authenticated evidence contains no CEP 27 publication statement |
| `missing-sidecar` | The selected adjacent or advertised sidecar does not exist |
| `offline-cache-miss` | Offline mode has no matching cached sidecar |
| `record-digest-only` | No retained package archive is available for audit verification |
| `retrieval-failed` | A local or remote sidecar could not be read |
| `sidecar-too-large` | Input exceeds `max_sidecar_bytes` while it is read or streamed |
| `unsupported-payload-type` | A valid bundle carries a DSSE payload type other than in-toto JSON |
| `unsupported-predicate` | A valid in-toto statement uses an unrecognized predicate type |
| `untrusted-identity` | Certificate identity and issuer do not match the explicit signer requirement |

A local or remote `verify --bundle` transport failure occurs before a
verification result exists. Conda reports it as a nonzero command error and
preserves the transport code where available. Audit converts per-package
transport failures into the version 1 package result above.

## Audit report version 1

The audit command wraps one verification result for each installed package:

```json
{
  "version": 1,
  "prefix": "/srv/conda/envs/runtime",
  "packages": []
}
```

| Field | Type | Contract |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `version` | integer | Exactly `1` |
| `prefix` | string | Resolved absolute environment prefix |
| `packages` | array | Version 1 verification results ordered by installed record name |

Without `--sources`, package results have exactly the verification fields
defined above. With `--sources`, every package result also has a
`source_evidence` array. The array may be empty when no source declares draft
attestation evidence.

## Parsed source result

A parsed source requirement has this complete shape:

```json
{
  "source_index": 0,
  "source_sha256": "cccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc",
  "status": "verified",
  "predicate_type": "https://slsa.dev/provenance/v1",
  "required_publishers": [
    {
      "identity": "https://github.com/example/project",
      "issuer": "https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com"
    }
  ],
  "matched_publishers": [
    {
      "identity": "https://github.com/example/project",
      "issuer": "https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com"
    }
  ],
  "bundles": [
    {
      "path": "attestations/project-1.0.0.sigstore.json",
      "sha256": "dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd",
      "status": "verified",
      "identity": "https://github.com/example/project/.github/workflows/release.yml@refs/tags/v1.0.0",
      "issuer": "https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com",
      "predicate_type": "https://slsa.dev/provenance/v1",
      "timestamps": ["2026-08-10T12:00:00Z"]
    }
  ],
  "package_publication": "verified",
  "verification_scope": "draft-source-attestation"
}
```

| Field | Type | Contract |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `source_index` | nonnegative integer | Position in the rendered recipe's source list |
| `source_sha256` | string | Lowercase SHA-256 declared by the recipe source |
| `status` | source status | Overall source result from the enumeration below |
| `predicate_type` | string or `null` | Optional predicate requirement declared by the recipe |
| `required_publishers` | array of signer objects | Expanded recipe publisher requirements |
| `matched_publishers` | array of signer objects | Required publisher objects that matched authenticated bundle signers |
| `bundles` | array of embedded bundle results | One result for every `verified` descriptor in the rendered recipe |
| `package_publication` | string | Exactly `verified` for a parsed source result |
| `verification_scope` | string | Exactly `draft-source-attestation` |
| `failure` | string, optional | Present when the source status is not `verified` |

When more than one bundle outcome applies, version 1 selects the source status
in this order: `missing`, `invalid`, `evidence-unavailable`, then
`untrusted-identity`.

| Value | Meaning |
| --- | --- |
| `verified` | Every embedded bundle verifies and every required publisher matches |
| `missing` | No bundle was listed or at least one listed bundle is absent |
| `invalid` | At least one embedded bundle or its source binding is invalid |
| `evidence-unavailable` | Trust material or bundle bytes could not be read |
| `untrusted-identity` | Not every required publisher matched a verified bundle signer |

Each embedded bundle result always has `path`, `sha256`, and `status`.

| Bundle `status` | Additional fields |
| --- | --- |
| `verified` | `identity`, `issuer`, `predicate_type`, and `timestamps` |
| `missing` | none |
| `invalid` | `failure` |
| `evidence-unavailable` | `failure` |

The exact rendered-recipe input is defined in
[Source-attestation audit format](source-attestations.md).

## Source inspection failure

When package publication, archive retention, archive inspection, or
rendered-recipe parsing prevents a source requirement from being produced, the
array contains this smaller variant:

```json
{
  "status": "evidence-unavailable",
  "failure": "verified package publication evidence is unavailable",
  "verification_scope": "draft-source-attestation"
}
```

This variant has exactly `status`, `failure`, and `verification_scope`.
`status` is `evidence-unavailable` for missing operational inputs or `invalid`
for malformed package-controlled input.

## Exit status

| Command | Exit status |
| --- | --- |
| `attest` | `0` after writing and locally verifying the bundle |
| `verify` | `0` only when the top-level status is `verified`, otherwise `1` |
| `audit` | `0` after producing a report, regardless of individual package statuses |

Argument, input, configuration, and command setup failures are conda errors and
exit nonzero. Do not use the audit process status as a package-verification
decision. Read each package `status` instead.