Safeguarding data integrity across any data supply chain

Makoto brings SLSA-style assurance levels to data pipelines, producing cryptographically signed DBOMs (Data Bills of Materials) to prove chain of custody.

Read the Specification Try the live demos → View Examples

What is Makoto?

Makoto (誠 — "sincerity, truth") brings SLSA-style assurance levels to data supply chains. The Makoto Levels specification defines incremental security guarantees for data origin, lineage, and transformations. A DBOM (Data Bill of Materials) is the signed record your pipeline produces to prove compliance.

Understanding Makoto Levels

These pages provide an overview of Makoto Levels, how they protect against common data supply chain attacks, and common use cases. If you're new to Makoto or data supply chain security, start here.

Page Description
About Makoto Levels An introductory guide to the Makoto specification
Data supply chain threats An introduction to data supply chain threats
Use cases Common use cases for data attestation
Guiding principles The core principles behind Makoto's design
Privacy techniques Techniques for privacy-preserving attestations

Provenance Levels

These pages describe the provenance level requirements. If you want to achieve a particular Makoto level (L1, L2, or L3), these are the requirements you'll need to meet.

Page Description
Provenance levels overview Overview of L1, L2, and L3 provenance levels
Producing DBOMs How to produce DBOMs for your data pipelines
Verifying DBOMs How to verify Data Bills of Materials

Attestation Formats

Page Description
Origin attestation Attestation format for data origin/provenance
Transform attestation Attestation format for data transformations
Stream window attestation Attestation format for high-throughput streams

Sample Attestation Pipeline

A typical data pipeline with Makoto attestations at each stage. Each stage generates an attestation that can be independently verified, ultimately producing a DBOM.

📡
Source
📥
Ingest
⚙️
Transform
💾
Store
📊
Consume

Example Origin Attestation

{
  "_type": "https://makoto.dev/origin/v0.1",
  "subject": [{
    "name": "sensor-readings-2025-01-15.parquet",
    "digest": { "sha256": "a1b2c3d4..." }
  }],
  "predicate": {
    "source": {
      "type": "iot-device",
      "id": "sensor-cluster-west-01"
    },
    "timestamp": "2025-01-15T10:30:00Z",
    "metadata": {
      "format": "parquet",
      "records": 1250000
    }
  }
}

Makoto Levels

Makoto defines three levels with increasing guarantees. Start with Level 1 for basic provenance tracking, then progressively enhance security based on your requirements.

Level 1

Provenance Exists

Documentation that data provenance exists. Enables detection of tampering through content hashing.

Level 2

Authentic Provenance

Cryptographically signed attestations with identity binding. Prevents attestation forgery.

Level 3

Unforgeable Provenance

Hardware-backed attestations using TEE or HSM. Provides non-repudiation even if systems are compromised.

Learn more about provenance levels →

Relationship to SLSA

Makoto brings SLSA-style assurance levels to data supply chains. While SLSA focuses on software build provenance, Makoto addresses the unique challenges of data pipelines.

Aspect SLSA Makoto
Focus Software artifacts Data artifacts
Provenance Build provenance Origin + Transform provenance
Scale Individual builds Batch files + high-throughput streams
Privacy Public metadata Privacy-preserving options
Output SBOM DBOM (Data Bill of Materials)
Format in-toto/DSSE in-toto/DSSE (compatible)

Just as SLSA defines levels for build provenance, Makoto defines levels for data provenance. Both frameworks share the same attestation envelope format (DSSE) and progressive level approach, making them complementary for organizations that need to secure both software and data supply chains.

Get Started with Makoto

Ready to bring data integrity to your pipelines? Start with Level 1 attestations and progressively enhance security as your needs grow.

Read the Specification Explore Examples View on GitHub