Read and verify the audit trail over the wire, not by client-side file parsing

Start by locating the MCP tool registration and the audit code used by audit verify and audit repair; the issue names no files or tests. Trace how the audit directory stores evaluations, signatures, and stamps, then identify the existing MCP reference and conformance rows. Done means the tools provide paged trail data and a verify report with --expect and --trail equivalents, with tests proving byte equality and updated reference documentation.

Remaining scope and proposal

The bounded tools and larger history sources below are included in the cumulative Runtime v0.38.0 candidate, prepared and merged by #325 (d895416771b2f8de2b5b37bafd9c30c2404d42dc). No v0.38.0 tag or publication is implied. This issue remains open under v0.39.0 for larger raw exports, larger verification and staged supplied-input contracts.

Merged #326 (e88492f482519ea6e36bd00ed186142aecfb4db9) records a proposal for bounded resumable raw downloads. Its independent review and targeted fix confirmation resolve the dispatch/context and terminal cancellation findings; the document remains PROPOSED / NOT IMPLEMENTED. Candidate budgets, platform capture, bounded transport and implementation evidence remain adoption gates. It changes no current tool or source limit and does not cover larger verification.

Merged history follow-up

Merged #324 (b51646e57d207f5b733d25fde68f26d4d2d2fdb5) decouples history's source-size limit from its fixed 4 MiB read/recheck window. It admits configured sources above 64 MiB up to the exact address ceiling 9007199254740990 (2^53-2), while preserving output, session and authority budgets. This is an addressability bound, not a filesystem-capability promise. Real 64 MiB boundary tests, synthetic high-offset tests, four caught mutants, all nine local checks, independent review and final-head CI passed. ADR 0069 is accepted. Raw export/configured verification and supplied-input limits remain unchanged, so this issue stays open.

Delivery status — 2026-10-23

Merged #313 supplies experimental_list_audit, experimental_list_audit_history and experimental_verify_audit, with ADR-0065, MCP reference documentation and Runtime-specific contract rows. Tool-only tests reconstruct all three files byte-for-byte and reproduce Desk-shaped history; CLI/MCP verification tests compare the full reports. These are Runtime convention checks, not a new Core conformance claim.

The delivered parity is explicitly bounded: raw-export captured files and configured verification trails are at most 64 MiB; history uses the existing Desk 4 MiB window and newest-50 selection, with the larger source-address bound delivered by #324; supplied verification trails are at most 8 MiB, and supplied checkpoints at most 1 MiB. The dedicated history tool handles the raw listing's 64 KiB structured-line and Unicode-selection differences within those budgets.

This issue remains open. Unrestricted parity beyond those source/input budgets is not claimed. Completing that broader scope needs an explicit bounded continuation/verification contract and corresponding consumer evidence; it must not silently raise resource limits or change Desk pagination behavior. Desk integration belongs to its separate active session and has not been changed here.

Evidence: MCP audit reference, contract rows.

Original request

Why

The Desk reads the audit trail (evaluations.jsonl, signatures.jsonl, stamps.jsonl) by parsing the files the runtime wrote, for the definition history and the trail download, and shells out to audit verify and audit repair over the same files. A client that does not share a filesystem with the trail cannot show or check it, and the reading of a record is best kept in the component that writes it. A wire method is preferred over client-side file parsing.

Scope

• Experimental MCP tools over the configured audit directory: a paged listing of the trail (evaluations, signatures, stamps, with the same members the files carry) and a verify report as audit verify gives it, with --expect and --trail equivalents.
• The CLI unchanged; the tools call the same code.

Acceptance

• The Desk's definition history and trail download can be produced from the tools alone, byte-equal to the file-based reading, shown by a test.
• Documented in the MCP reference; conformance rows.