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Strata

Submissions as immutable layers

Tier: Record · Requirement module: Submission Portal · Status: 🟡 Designed

Purpose

Strata holds what firms filed. Every submission is a layer: immutable once submitted, addressable forever, and never overwritten by an amendment or a resubmission. The name is the model — layers of record laid down in order, readable in cross-section.

This engine makes the second law true.

Scope

Capability Status Notes
Draft return 🟡 Mutable until submitted; pinned to a template version
Import from Excel/CSV ⬜ Maps to template fields and rejects on mismatch — never coerces
Pre-submission validation 🟡 Same Assay rules the supervisor will run
Internal maker-checker 🟡 Certifier must differ from preparer, enforced at the API
Certification declaration ✅ Electronic declaration recorded with actor and timestamp
Submit to supervisor 🟡 Freezes the version, seals it, emits the event
Resubmit with response ✅ New version; the prior version and the query it answers both persist
Submission receipt ⬜ Signed PDF with the submission hash — the firm's proof of filing
Version comparison 🟡 Field-level diff between any two versions

The version model

obligation: R02 · licence 873390 · Q2 2026
   │
   ├── v1.0   submitted 2026-08-11 · certified T. Ncube · sealed
   │            └── rejected 2026-08-12 · reason cited · M. Okonjo
   │
   ├── v1.1   submitted 2026-08-19 · amendment responding to Q-1
   │            └── accepted 2026-08-21 · M. Okonjo          ◄── current
   │
   └── current pointer ──► v1.1

Rules of the model:

  • A draft is mutable and belongs to the firm. It is not a version.
  • Submission freezes the document, assigns a version, and seals it. From that moment it is immutable.
  • An amendment is a new version against the same obligation, always carrying a reason and, where it answers one, the query reference.
  • The current pointer identifies the operative version. Moving it is itself a sealed event.
  • Deleting a version is not implementable. There is no endpoint and no code path.

Storage shape

A submission document is jsonb keyed by template field id, validated against its template version on write. The argument for this shape — and the alternatives rejected — is set out in the stack.

{
  "obligationId": "OBL-873390-R02-2026Q2",
  "version": "1.1",
  "templateCode": "R02",
  "templateVersion": "2.4",
  "submittedAt": "2026-08-19T14:22:00Z",
  "preparedBy": "user:j.moyo",
  "certifiedBy": "user:t.ncube",
  "amendmentOf": "1.0",
  "respondsTo": "Q-1",
  "values": {
    "R02-X01": 512760000,
    "R02-X03": 192787505,
    "R02-X08": 0.83
  },
  "documentHash": "sha256:9f2c…"
}

Values for derived fields are rejected, not ignored. A document that tries to supply R02-X07 fails conformance and the submission does not happen.

Owns

  • Drafts, submissions, and their versions
  • The current-version pointer per obligation
  • Certification records (preparer, certifier, declaration, board approval date)
  • Attachment references and checksums
  • Version diffs

Does not own

  • Validation results — Assay produces them; Strata stores the reference
  • Review decisions — Bench
  • The audit chain — Seal
  • Obligation state — Cadence, which Strata notifies by event

Open questions

  • Draft template migration. A draft pinned to v2.3 when v2.4 takes effect: the firm sees a diff and accepts the migration. Unresolved whether a supervisor can force it mid-period, and what happens to values in fields the new version removed.
  • Partial submission. Large returns filed section by section over days. Currently out of scope — a submission is atomic — but firms filing R19 daily trading data may need streaming instead.