Production checklist

Use this checklist before shipping a workflow backed by ProveKit. It is intentionally conservative: ProveKit is still under active development and main may change proof, key, recursive-verifier, or API formats between commits.

1. Pin the implementation

Use v1 for the current stable interface; use main only for early-adopter work, with a migration or rollback plan.
Record the git commit, lockfile, toolchain, exact CLI commands, and the prepare --hash value used to generate every artifact set.

2. Control and handle artifacts

For every generated artifact, record the provenance below:

Artifact	Required provenance
`.pkp`	Circuit source, hash, commit, generating command.
`.pkv`	Same generation record as the matching `.pkp`.
`proof.np` or JSON proof	Matching `.pkp`, input file, public inputs, commit.
`params_for_recursive_verifier`	Matching `.pkv` and proof.
`r1cs.json`	Matching `.pkv` and recursive-verifier export command.
Groth16 `pk` / `vk`	Setup ceremony or development-only generation record.

Handling rules:

Do not mix artifacts generated from different branches, commits, hash choices, circuits, or verifier/proof pairs.
Treat public input encoding as an API contract; review show-inputs --hex output as part of release sign-off.
Keep private witness values and prover keys out of logs unless explicitly approved.

3. Lock the end-to-end workflow

Add a CI job that runs the exact deployment path:

mkdir -p artifacts
cargo run --release --bin provekit-cli -- prepare \
  . \
  --pkp artifacts/app.pkp \
  --pkv artifacts/app.pkv
cargo run --release --bin provekit-cli -- prove \
  --prover artifacts/app.pkp \
  --input Prover.toml \
  --out artifacts/proof.np
cargo run --release --bin provekit-cli -- verify \
  --verifier artifacts/app.pkv \
  --proof artifacts/proof.np
cargo run --release --bin provekit-cli -- show-inputs --hex \
  artifacts/app.pkv \
  artifacts/proof.np

If recursive verification is part of the product, add the export step and verify the Go/gnark path with the exact generated files:

cargo run --release --bin provekit-cli -- generate-gnark-inputs \
  artifacts/app.pkv \
  artifacts/proof.np \
  --params artifacts/params_for_recursive_verifier \
  --r1cs artifacts/r1cs.json

4. Harden integration hosts

Rust services

Reload or clone verifier state when verifying multiple proofs in one process.
Expose the --hash choice in configuration so the proving and verifying hosts stay aligned.
Add regression tests that confirm mismatched key/proof pairs are rejected.

WASM / JavaScript

Call initPanicHook() and initThreadPool() before proving when using threaded builds.
Create a new Prover for each proof; proveBytes() / proveJs() consume the prover.
Validate witness maps before calling proveBytes() or proveJs().
Load .pkp and .pkv artifacts from authenticated, integrity-checked sources.

FFI / mobile

Call pk_init() once before proving.
Configure the custom allocator or mmap memory before initialization.
Free every returned PKBuf with pk_free_buf().
Test low-memory and cancellation behavior on target devices.

Verifier server

Restrict artifact URL sources or proxy them through trusted storage.
Tune VERIFIER_MAX_REQUEST_SIZE, VERIFIER_REQUEST_TIMEOUT, VERIFIER_TIMEOUT_SECONDS, and VERIFIER_SEMAPHORE_LIMIT for real proof sizes.
Monitor /health, request IDs, verification latency, timeout rate, and invalid-proof rate.
Decide how long downloaded artifacts remain in VERIFIER_ARTIFACTS_DIR.

Recursive verifier

Generate the Groth16 trusted-setup proving and verifying keys with a production-grade ceremony, not the development helper.
Re-run the recursive export after changing the proof, verifier key, branch, circuit, or hash configuration.

5. Red flags

Pause deployment if any of these are true:

Artifact provenance is unknown or spans multiple branches or commits.
verify fails locally for a proof the service plans to accept.
Recursive-verifier params or r1cs.json were not regenerated with the current .pkv and proof.
Public input ordering is not pinned by a show-inputs --hex test for the production circuit.
Verifier-server artifact URLs can be controlled by untrusted clients without filtering.
FFI buffers are not freed, or allocator setup happens after pk_init().
Browser proving reuses a consumed WASM Prover instance.
The deployment depends on main behavior without a migration or rollback plan.