"This curriculum teaches proof-aware cryptographic tooling from first principles to a research-grade professional workflow. It is designed for undergraduate students who know some programming and discrete math, but have not yet worked with formal verification, Lean, certificate transparency, or autonomous-agent risk gates.\n",
"\n",
"The practical anchor is PACTA: Proof-Aware Crypto Tooling Agent. The goal is not to build a trading bot. The goal is to teach an agent, and the engineer supervising it, to ask:\n",
"\n",
"> Does this theorem cover the exact code path that will protect funds?\n",
"\n",
"The course takes that question seriously. Every notebook connects theory to a runnable artifact in this repository.\n"
" The trust architecture has exactly two domains - ONE provider\n",
" who builds and signs the authenticated structure (and pays the\n",
" Lean bill), MANY agents who verify inclusion proofs in\n",
" milliseconds. The course mirrors that split structurally: 6a is\n",
" written entirely in the provider's voice, 6b entirely in the\n",
" agent's. If you cannot say which notebook a step belongs to,\n",
" you have not understood the step.\n",
" Build the Merkle accumulator intuition behind inclusion proofs, consistency proofs, and Signed Tree Heads.\n",
"\n",
"7. `07_agent_consequences.ipynb`\n",
" Connect evidence to action: build a lower-layer Rust capsule only when policy gates pass.\n",
"\n",
"8. `08_capstone_research_program.ipynb`\n",
" Design a PhD-level roadmap for closing the gaps from R4 toward R5.\n",
"\n",
"9. `09_dogfood_verified_crypto.ipynb`\n",
"\n",
" Eat your own dogfood: run the agent's own signature checks through the proven code path, and hold the post-quantum line honestly.\n",
"\n",
"## The Ratchet Rule\n",
"\n",
"This course follows the same didactic contract as its companion book (*Verifying Cryptography with Lean 4*): **every load-bearing idea is worked at least twice** - once at napkin scale (trees of three leaves, toy claim cards you can score in your head) and once at real scale (the shipped R4 claim cards, real receipts, the real proven-path verifier), with nothing hidden in between. The napkin run teaches the moves; the real-size run proves the moves are the whole story. If a step ever feels like a leap, back up one cell: the smaller rung is there.\n"
]
},
{
"cell_type": "markdown",
"metadata": {},
"source": [
"## Assessment Model\n",
"\n",
"Each notebook contains:\n",
"\n",
"- A lecture section for concepts.\n",
"- A lab section with runnable code.\n",
"- Checkpoints that force precise answers.\n",
"- Exercises for mastery.\n",
"- Research prompts for advanced students.\n",
"\n",
"The capstone asks students to produce a defensible assurance case, not a slogan.\n"
]
},
{
"cell_type": "markdown",
"metadata": {},
"source": [
"## References\n",
"\n",
"- RFC 9162, Certificate Transparency Version 2.0: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc9162\n",
"- RFC 8032, Edwards-Curve Digital Signature Algorithm: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8032\n",
"- NIST FIPS 204, Module-Lattice-Based Digital Signature Standard: https://csrc.nist.gov/pubs/fips/204/final\n",
"- PACTA README: `../README.md`\n"
]
},
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"metadata": {},
"source": [
"## The course's operational twin: the cockpit and the lab manual\n",
"\n",
"These notebooks are the *code-level* track: you build the machinery with your own hands.\n",
"Two sibling surfaces teach the *operational* track on the very same system:\n",
"\n",
"- **The custody cockpit** — `pacta wallet cockpit --demo` serves a read-only bridge of six\n",
" role stations (proposer, quorum bench, operator, cryptographer, architect, newcomer) over\n",
" live evidence, with a tmux-style deck (`/deck`) showing every station in parallel.\n",
"- **The lab manual** (`docs/warden-lab-manual.md`, served at `/manual`) — a study-club course\n",
" that teaches each *role* hands-on: labs with checkpoints, a safe ledger-tamper drill,\n",
" self-tests, and a capstone incident walked through all six chairs.\n",
"\n",
"Recommended weave: notebooks 00–09 first (build it), then the lab manual (run it as a crew),\n",
"with notebook 10 and the manual's warden sessions read side by side."