Published State Summaries ​

A published state summary is a compact form for representing the outcome of an epoch.

It is needed so that the canonical outcome can be used, verified, and passed forward without disclosing the entire internal array of the environment.

Without a published state summary, epochal architecture remains incomplete.

The network then either:

• forces participants to re-enter the internal history deeply every time;
• or leaves the current outcome without a compact verifiable form.

For Realith, that is undesirable.

What such a summary links together ​

A published state summary must link together:

• the previous verifiable outcome;
• the new epoch result;
• the volume of accepted transitions needed for verification of the next step;
• a verifiable surface sufficient for the next coordination;
• a reference to the boundary between the published outcome and unpublished internal content.

This is not a full log and not merely a technical receipt.

One more distinction must be retained here:

a published state summary is not a new form of the object itself or of its state; it is an externalized verifiable form for an already canonized epoch result.

What it is not ​

A published state summary must not be confused with:

• an operator receipt;
• a separate proof;
• transport confirmation;
• the full internal state of a contour;
• the full history of an object.

It is a separate type of network artifact.

It is precisely through such a summary that one can reconcile:

• verifiability of outcome;
• limited observability;
• separation of working and archival roles;
• the possibility of external verification without access to the whole internal layer.

At the current stage, one should not assert:

• the final field composition;
• the final commitment format;
• the final cryptographic profile;
• the final composition of proof.

But it can already be asserted that without a compact published state summary, the epochal architecture of Realith remains incomplete.