1. Capture
Ingestion events, document hashes, metadata assertions, and initial policy decisions are recorded at submission.
2. Validate
Reviewer decisions, OCR confidence overrides, and control exceptions are written as append-only workflow events.
3. Approve
Approver identity, rationale, and approval policy version are retained with tamper-evident timestamps.
4. Release
Export checksums, watermark policies, destination channels, and delivery confirmations are retained for audit response.
5. Retain and retrieve
Evidence is retained per policy and queryable for internal controls testing, incidents, and regulator response packs.