<!-- SPDX-License-Identifier: AGPL-3.0-or-later -->

Confidential Payroll Completion Gate

Date: 2026-08-26

This is the delivery boundary for PrivateDAO Confidential Payroll. It separates implemented, locally verified capabilities from capabilities that require a real backend, provider authorization, wallet signature, or independent review.

Delivered Now

• Browser-local payroll calculation using integer cents and tax basis points.
• Gross, tax, deductions, net, budget, duplicate payout-key, arithmetic, and

policy checks.

• Browser-local AES-256-GCM encryption with PBKDF2-SHA256 key derivation.
• Only commitments, hashes, and approved aggregate claims are sent to the

Record Verification API.

• Portable public payroll verification route:

/verify/payroll?receiptId=<receipt>.

• Existing Record Verification integration now uses the canonical public API

base, which is required for the static frontend.

• A payroll-specific Circom circuit and Groth16 artifacts exist in zk/:

source, R1CS, WASM, proving keys, verification key, witness tooling, and sample proof artifacts.

• Devnet-only Umbra intent workflow with explicit lifecycle and privacy-tier

metadata.

Not Yet Complete

1. Real payroll control plane

The current browser flow does not persist an encrypted payroll manifest, organization, employee directory, approval chain, or immutable payroll batch in the production backend. A complete product needs tenant isolation, roles, maker-checker approvals, policy versions, idempotent batch state, audit events, and encrypted manifest storage outside the browser.

2. Tax and deductions engine

The current calculator supports a configurable tax rate and deductions, not jurisdictional payroll compliance. Production completion requires versioned country/state rules, effective dates, withholding categories, benefits, garnishments, bonuses, rounding rules, payroll-calendar handling, and a clear employer compliance boundary. The rule source and legal review must be named.

3. Umbra settlement

The current workflow is Devnet-only and returns an intent/relay receipt. It is not a completed per-recipient Umbra payout. Full closure requires the current official Umbra SDK flow, wallet-side proof generation, UTXO/slot data, explicit user signing, finalized provider confirmation, recipient reconciliation, and a provider receipt bound to the payroll batch. No Mainnet claim is made.

4. Payroll Groth16 binding

The payroll circuit artifact exists, but the browser payroll flow currently does not generate and verify a payroll Groth16 proof. The circuit must be reviewed for the actual payroll claims, compiled from pinned sources, proven and verified in the backend or approved local engine, and bound to the public payroll receipt and policy commitment. The current circuit must not be marketed as proving arbitrary payroll correctness.

5. Blind/Record Verification proof link

The public Record Verification certificate path works as a public claims receipt, subject to the deployed API being reachable. It currently proves the submitted aggregate claims and commitments; it does not independently prove that Umbra settled every employee payout until settlement evidence is attached. Expiry, revocation, scoped auditor access, and selective disclosure are still needed for an enterprise-grade proof link.

6. Reconciliation and operations

Required before commercial launch: per-recipient payout status, retries, partial-failure handling, duplicate prevention across batches, provider reconciliation, exportable audit pack, webhooks, alerting, retention policy, backup/restore, and operator controls.

7. Enterprise assurance

KMS integration exists as a runtime signing path for enterprise licensing, but an active production KMS key policy and deployment evidence were not found in the source tree. External security audit completion is not documented. The repository contains internal reviews, independent-verification material, and an audit handoff package; these are not a third-party audit opinion.

8. SDK and commercial packaging

The Blind Policy TypeScript SDK path is pilot-ready. Rust and Python SDKs, versioned payroll SDKs, public package release, tenant billing, support policy, SLA, and production pricing are not closed as a single payroll product.

Release Decision

NOT READY FOR REAL-FUNDS PAYROLL

The safe deliverable today is a Devnet/browser demonstration plus public aggregate Record Verification. It is not safe to describe the product as a complete payroll processor or to accept production payroll funds until the control plane, jurisdictional rules, provider settlement, proof binding, and external security review gates are closed.