Stage 1 - Claim Submission and Decomposition

The verification process begins with claim submission. Applications or users submit claims through the Swarm Network API or SDK, specifying the statement to be verified, evidence that supports the claim, privacy requirements that control information disclosure, and verification parameters that determine how the claim should be processed.

Upon receiving a claim, the protocol performs initial validation to ensure the claim is well-formed, evidence is accessible, and verification requirements are achievable. Claims that pass validation enter the decomposition stage where they are broken down into atomic claims—the smallest verifiable units of information. This decomposition is critical for both privacy and efficiency.

Decomposition serves multiple purposes. Privacy enhancement occurs because smaller atomic claims reveal less information than monolithic claims, enabling more granular privacy controls. Parallel processing becomes possible as independent atomic claims can be verified simultaneously by different agents, reducing overall verification time. Verification accuracy improves because simpler atomic claims are easier to verify correctly than complex composite claims. Cost optimization results from the ability to cache and reuse verification results for atomic claims that appear in multiple composite claims.

Consider a claim that “User X has annual income above $50,000 and no bankruptcy in the past 7 years.” This composite claim decomposes into atomic claims including “User X’s annual income is $Y,” “Y > $50,000,” “User X has no bankruptcy filings in period P,” and “Period P covers the past 7 years from today.” Each atomic claim can be verified independently, with only the necessary results combined to produce the final verification.