← Glossary

Provenance

A near-synonym of lineage, with extra emphasis on *who* and *when* — provenance is the audit chain of human + system actions, not just data flow.

Lineage and provenance overlap heavily; in MDM contexts they're often used interchangeably. The pedantic distinction:

  • Lineage focuses on the data chain: source row → resolution event → survivorship choice → field value
  • Provenance focuses on the action chain: who or what made each decision, when, and (for audited systems) cryptographic evidence that the record wasn't tampered with

Golden Suite captures both. The audit log is per-org and cryptographically chained (SHA-256 per row plus previous-row hash), so a tampered row breaks the chain at the point of modification and shows up in the verify endpoint.