Protocol
Architecture
Vanta moves expensive execution away from compact settlement. Operators compute externally; contracts hold commitments and value, dispatch to approved verifiers, and finalize one outcome.
Four contracts
TaskLedger | Derives task commitments, freezes economic terms, invokes the chosen verifier, stores the accepted output, and exposes expiry resolution. |
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ReserveVault | Custodies one balance per task. Its bound ledger may credit a resolution or restore an expiry; recipients withdraw through pull balances. |
AttestorDirectory | Registers non-overwritable verifier identifiers with adapter address, version, status, and metadata commitment. |
NetworkPolicy | Defines prospective charges, treasury, task-size limits, duration bounds, and new-task admission without rewriting open terms. |
Task state machine
A terminal task cannot move again. Requester, selected verifier, program reference, input commitment, amount, charge, and expiry are immutable once the creation transaction succeeds.
Operator boundary
The ledger never assigns meaning to arbitrary evidence bytes. It supplies the committed statement to the selected adapter and acts on the adapter's acceptance decision.
Administration
Verifier admission and future configuration require explicit authority in the reference design. Contracts should be non-upgradeable by default. A public release must move control behind delayed multisignature execution, publish reproducible bytecode, and use new versioned deployments instead of changing the semantics of existing tasks.
Asset boundary
Native-value escrow is the first implementation target. $VANTA settlement needs a separate token contract and allowlisted token vault. Neither asset changes host-chain consensus, gas rules, or finality.