Verifying Workflows

Workflow verification ensures the integrity and authenticity of your workflows across deployment, onchain execution, and third-party auditing. This guide explains how workflow IDs are computed, how to verify workflows in consumer contracts, and how to enable independent verification by third parties.

Workflow ID

The workflow ID is a unique hash that serves as the primary identifier for your workflow throughout its lifecycle. It is computed locally during cre workflow deploy from the following inputs:

  • workflowOwner: The deployer's address
  • workflowName: The name specified in your workflow
  • Compiled workflow binary: The WASM binary produced from your workflow code
  • Config file contents: The contents of your workflow's config file
  • Secrets hash: An empty string placeholder for secrets

Because the workflow ID is derived from these inputs, it deterministically represents a specific version of your workflow code and configuration.

Use cre workflow hash to inspect the workflow ID before deploying. This lets you preview the ID without submitting an onchain transaction.

For more details on deployment and updates, see Deploying Workflows and Updating Deployed Workflows.

Verifying workflows onchain

When a workflow writes onchain, the consumer contract receives both the report data and metadata through the onReport callback. The metadata contains information you can use to verify the source of the report:

  • workflowId (bytes32): The unique workflow hash
  • workflowName (bytes10): The workflow name, hash-encoded
  • workflowOwner (address): The address that deployed the workflow

See Building Consumer Contracts for the full IReceiver interface and metadata structure.

Workflow name encoding

The workflowName in metadata is not stored as a plain string. It is a SHA256 hash of the workflow name, truncated to bytes10. See how workflow names are encoded for the full encoding process.

Security best practices

Follow these practices to ensure only authorized workflows can interact with your consumer contract:

  • Verify msg.sender: Always check that msg.sender is the expected forwarder address. See the Forwarder Directory for addresses by network.
  • Permission on workflow ID: Use setExpectedWorkflowId from ReceiverTemplate to restrict which workflow can call your contract.

Third-party verification

Third-party verification allows customers or auditors to independently confirm that a deployed workflow matches its source code. The deployer shares the workflow source, and the verifier uses the CRE CLI to compute the workflow hash and compare it against the onchain workflow ID.

Steps for the workflow developer

  1. Add a .env.public file to your workflow folder with GOTOOLCHAIN set to the Go toolchain version you use to build the workflow. Pinning that version helps reproducible builds across machines and environments. Add this file before running cre workflow deploy.

    Example (replace with your own version—the tag below is not prescriptive):

    GOTOOLCHAIN=go1.23.0

    Use the same toolchain string you build with; go version reports it (for example go1.23.0 linux/amd64 → use go1.23.0).

  2. Share your workflow source with the customer. Provide a zip archive or repository link that includes all workflow files, including .env.public. Exclude .env files that contain private keys or secrets.

Steps for the verifier

  1. Install the CRE CLI. No login or deploy access is required for hash verification.

  2. Unzip or clone the shared workflow repository.

  3. Run cre workflow hash to compute the workflow hash:

    cre workflow hash ./workflow-folder --public_key=0xYourDeployerAddress

    Replace ./workflow-folder with the path to the workflow source and 0xYourDeployerAddress with the deployer's public address.

  4. Compare the output with the workflow ID observed onchain. The Workflow hash value in the output corresponds to the onchain workflow ID:

    Binary hash:   0dcbb19de3c22edfe61605a970eb6d42199df91ac3e992cd3f2e33cb13efbb4c
Config hash:   3bdaebcc2f639d77cb248242c1d01c8651f540cdbf423d26fe3128516fd225b6
Workflow hash: 004fff5bb1ae05cc16e453f8ad564f5e8b0eae1945ec22f3d0adfc0339954d56

    If the workflow hash matches the onchain workflow ID, the deployed workflow matches the shared source code.

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