Glossary

Action / Method — A single transaction recipe in a manifest: its inputs, outputs, witnesses, and validations. Action (top-level) and method (inside a class) are structurally identical.

Attestation — A BIP340 signature over the finalized manifest by a developer, auditor, or counterparty. Tampering invalidates it.

Class — A typed contract definition with named fields and methods. Each deployed instance of a class has its own instance file.

CMR (Commitment Merkle Root) — The 32-byte hash of a compiled Simplicity program. Doubles as the program's on-chain identity.

canonical_cmr — The CMR of a program with all parameters zeroed. A stable identifier for the program's structure, independent of instance parameters.

Compile param — A value baked into a covenant script at deploy time. Changing one changes the script's address. Stored in the instance file.

Manifest — The static JSON protocol definition (txmanifest.json).

Covenant — A script that constrains how its output may be spent — e.g. by introspecting the spending transaction's inputs and outputs.

Derived param — A compile param computed by the tool rather than supplied: from a formula, or from the outpoint of an issuance input.

Instance file — Per-deployment compile params and class field values (<name>.instance.json).

NUMS point — "Nothing Up My Sleeve" — a public key with no known private key, used as a Taproot internal key to make the key-path provably unspendable.

provided_inputs — UTXOs pre-filled inline in the instance file, letting a wallet spend a counterparty's output it never indexed.

PSET — Partially Signed Elements Transaction (the Elements equivalent of a PSBT).

State file — The live on-chain UTXO set for one instance (<name>.state.json), updated after every broadcast.

Tapleaf compute spec — A field value (lang: "tapleaf") that compiles a .simf file with params to produce a covenant script hash.

UTXO type — A named on-chain state with a known script, so a wallet can recognise the protocol's outputs.

Witness — A value supplied to satisfy a Simplicity program when spending: a signature, a path selector, a leaf selector, or a computed value.