Help & FAQ

A research notebook where every entry, reading, and photo is committed to a per-experiment SHA-256 hash chain and anchored to a Bitcoin block — making the record independently verifiable, tamper-evident evidence (for SR&ED, patents/IP provenance, GLP, or data you simply need to trust).

Create a project (your venture or study) → add an experiment (state the uncertainty & hypothesis) → log entries by hand, from a Raspberry Pi sensor node, or the mobile app. That's it — each entry is chained and, on anchoring, Bitcoin-timestamped. Reusable protocol templates let you spin up repeat studies in one tap.

Yes by default — everything is scoped to your account. Nothing is public unless you publish an experiment (Share → public link), and even then you choose proof-only (hashes + timestamps, contents withheld) or full. You can export or delete everything at any time (Account page).

Open the experiment → ⤓ proof bundle (JSON) (or publish a public verify link). Hand them the bundle plus verify_acta.py (in your data export). Running it recomputes the whole chain, checks every witness signature, and confirms the Bitcoin timestamp — without trusting Acta or its servers.

Acta hashes the experiment's current chain head and submits it to OpenTimestamps, which commits it into a Bitcoin block. Afterwards, anyone can prove the record existed — unaltered — as of that block's time, using only the public blockchain. It starts "pending" and becomes "confirmed" once mined.

Freezing records your uncertainty/hypothesis/controls/measures into the hash chain and anchors it — proving you planned the experiment before the data arrived. It's a strong scientific-integrity and SR&ED signal (you can't back-date a frozen protocol).

A second person reviews your experiment and cryptographically countersigns its current state — the "signed & witnessed" that makes a lab notebook count for patents and GLP. Request one on the experiment page; they get an email, review, and sign. Their signature is folded into the chain and re-anchored.

Device-key (🔑, recommended): the witness's Ed25519 private key is generated and kept in their browser and never sent to Acta — true non-repudiation. Server-key: a fallback where Acta holds the key (still a valid, auditable countersignature). Lost the browser holding a device key? Reset it on the Account page and sign fresh next time.

An attestation or invitation is only meaningful from a verified identity, so those actions require a confirmed email. Check your inbox for the link (or resend it from the notebook home).

Yes — share a project (👥 share on the notebook) by email with a role: owner (full control + member management), editor (add experiments, log, attach), or viewer (read + verify only). A per-project activity log (🕮) records who did what.

On the Fleet page, register a device — you get an API key bound to it. Flash the key onto the Pi and POST readings to /api/v1/experiments/<id>/readings (a ready-made examples/pi_client.py ships in the engine). The device shows on the fleet as "waiting" → "live", with trend sparklines and silent-node / threshold alerts.

Yes — an Android app at soteriacovenant.org/acta. Capture geotagged field photos straight into the chain, log entries (with keyboard voice dictation), and work offline — captures queue and sync when you're back in signal. Print a QR sample label (on the experiment page) and scan it in the app to jump to that experiment.

On a project, ⚑ SR&ED report assembles a T661-shaped working paper (lines 242/244/246) from your log only — uncertainties, work performed, advancements, plus an hours rollup and the OTS anchor dates as contemporaneous-evidence backbone. It flags gaps rather than inventing anything; it's a draft for you/your CPA, not a filed claim.

Yes to both, on the Account page. Export gives a self-verifying ZIP (every experiment's proof bundle + attachments + the verifier). Delete permanently removes everything you own (password-confirmed) — it never touches other people's records or the witness signatures you gave on their experiments.

Use Forgot password? on the sign-in page — you'll get a one-hour reset link by email. (Covenant members sign in through their membership instead.)