Provenance links a value, decision, or action to the evidence and process that produced it. History records when it changed and what it replaced. Havilo stores both alongside the current state.
Different parts of Havilo keep different evidence records, but they answer the same practical questions:
| Question | Evidence Havilo keeps |
|---|---|
| Where did this come from? | The supporting page, passage, file, message, calendar event, or import |
| Why was it accepted? | The evidence and decision that supported it |
| What changed? | The previous and current state, with the time of the change |
| Who or what changed it? | The person or connected system responsible |
| Can it be reversed safely? | The prior state and whether reversal would overwrite anything newer |
Sources and revisions
Mail messages, calendar events, and field memos remain source material rather than being reduced to unattributed text. When a source changes, Havilo can retain the earlier version alongside the newer one. Later work can therefore point to the material it actually used.
Imports retain their file and external identifiers so a later run can update the same entities and relationships instead of creating duplicates. Public research retains the pages and passages used to support an identity or enriched fact.
Grounded field values
For grounded enrichment, provenance is part of the field value. Havilo can retain the source page and supporting passage, when the information was observed, and whether the stored value was copied directly or derived from the source.
A rejected value can retain its trace without entering the entity. If a supported value replaces an existing one, the previous value remains part of the history.
When a public page is incomplete or contradictory, Havilo can show that a fact was considered and rejected without presenting it as current truth.
Conflicting information
Several sources may report different values for the same field. Havilo keeps those observations distinct and considers their source, support, recency, and confidence when deciding what should be current.
Manual edits take precedence over autonomous updates. A new source can add evidence without silently replacing a value someone deliberately entered. When the current value changes, the earlier observation remains available in the history.
Reviewing and reversing changes
Some automated decisions change several connected parts of the network. An accepted identity match, for example, may add a public profile and bind it to the entity. A merge may move fields, Notes, identities, and relationships from a duplicate into the surviving entity.
Havilo records enough of the before-and-after state to review or reverse those decisions. Before reversing a change, it checks that the affected information has not since been edited. If it has, Havilo preserves the newer work instead of restoring stale data over it.
Later decisions can supersede earlier ones without deleting them. The current result remains traceable to the evidence and decision that produced it.
Together, provenance and history make the current state inspectable, stop unsupported information before it becomes data, and give reversible changes a defined path back.
See Identity and enrichment for how evidence is used to resolve entities and apply public information.