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Provenance is the record of where a variable’s value came from. Every value TrueMath works with carries this metadata, so a result is not just a number — it is a number you can trace back to its origin.

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Kinds of provenance

A value’s origin is one of:
  • User-stated — provided directly as an input.
  • Calculated — computed by an activity from other values.
  • Carried forward — brought forward from an earlier point in the same conversation.
  • Default — supplied from the variable’s default value.
In API results, each variable reports a source of user_input, calculated, or default_value, and a historical flag indicating whether the value was carried forward from a prior scenario.

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Resolution

When more than one value could apply to a variable, TrueMath resolves it deterministically — the same inputs always produce the same result — and every resolved value keeps the provenance record described above, so you can always see which value was used and where it came from. A default is a fallback: it applies only when no other value has been provided or calculated for that variable.

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Why it matters

Because every value’s origin is tracked through each step, a calculation can be explained as a sequence of documented inputs and results rather than presented as an unaccountable answer. Provenance is the foundation of that explainability — and a core part of what makes TrueMath an execution layer you can trust. See Guarantees.