IRIS Anvil

IRIS Anvil is a proof-first management portal for InterSystems IRIS. It turns administrative changes into deterministic, auditable workflows instead of opaque point-and-click operations.
Every managed change moves through a six-stage reactor:
Validate → Resolve → Plan → Execute → Verify → Receipt
Before execution, IRIS Anvil resolves the requested operation into an explicit plan. After execution, it reads the resulting state back from IRIS and verifies that the intended postconditions actually hold. The proposal, execution evidence, and observed result are bound to deterministic SHA-256 digests, producing a cryptographic receipt for the change.

Native IRIS Management

The first management cartridge implements deployment of an IRIS web application using the native Security.Applications API.
It demonstrates the complete lifecycle:

1. Define the desired application configuration.
2. Validate and resolve the requested change.
3. Produce an explicit execution plan.
4. Execute the change through IRIS.
5. Independently reread the resulting IRIS configuration.
6. Verify the required postconditions.
7. Issue a deterministic receipt for the result.
   The important distinction is that successful execution is not treated as proof of success. IRIS Anvil verifies the resulting state.

Separate Observation From Authority

IRIS Anvil deliberately separates observation from authority.
The public REST surface is read-only and exposes system and reactor state. Management operations live on a separate authenticated administrative surface.
Public mutation routes do not exist. Administrative operations require an authorized IRIS identity.
This creates a clear boundary between:
Observe → Propose → Execute → Verify
rather than giving every interface that can inspect a system the authority to change it.

Proof-First Change Control

For each managed operation, IRIS Anvil records the proposal, execution evidence, observed result, and verification state.
Deterministic SHA-256 digests bind those artifacts together into a receipt.
The goal is simple:

A management portal should not merely report that it sent a command. It should be able to prove what it intended to change, what actually changed, and whether the resulting system state matches the plan.

Management Cockpit

The web interface presents the system as a live management cockpit rather than a collection of disconnected administrative forms.
Operators can see:

• Reactor stages
• Current system state
• Proposed operations
• Execution status
• Event history
• Verification evidence
• Resulting receipts
  The interface makes the lifecycle of a change visible from proposal through independently verified result.

Extensible Cartridge Architecture

IRIS Anvil uses a cartridge model so additional IRIS management operations can share the same control plane.
A management cartridge defines:

• What may be changed
• Which inputs are valid
• How desired state is resolved
• How the operation is executed
• Which postconditions must hold
• What evidence is required for verification
  That allows new management capabilities to inherit the same deterministic lifecycle and evidence model without rebuilding the portal.

Reproducible By Design

Reproducibility is part of the architecture.
The repository includes Docker-based IRIS Community deployment, bootstrap tooling, and clean-room GitHub Actions integration testing.
CI starts a fresh IRIS instance and verifies the application from a clean environment, including:

• Compilation of the REST surfaces
• Public read access
• Absence of public mutation routes
• Authentication enforcement on the administrative surface
• Deployment of the managed IRIS web application
• Deterministic reactor structure
• Verification of the resulting application state

Key Capabilities

• Deterministic Validate → Resolve → Plan → Execute → Verify → Receipt lifecycle
• Native InterSystems IRIS management through supported APIs
• Explicit separation between read-only observation and privileged execution
• Post-execution verification against actual IRIS state
• SHA-256-bound proposals and execution receipts
• Append-only management evidence
• Idempotent proposal handling and replay-safe execution
• Extensible management-cartridge architecture
• Live management and evidence cockpit
• Reproducible Docker deployment
• Clean-room CI verification

Source

IRIS Anvil is open source:
https://github.com/mcc0nnell/iris-anvil