Cove
Cove is a framework and open-source reference implementation for confidential workflows shared by parties that do not trust each other.
Its developers describe a workflow as a graph of enclave-run stages. Owners approve the exact hashed manifest of each stage before releasing keys to their private assets. Each stage produces an attested certificate linking its manifest, inputs, outputs and verified predecessors.
A verifier checks that chain from the terminal certificate. The reference architecture runs Docker Compose inside Intel TDX through Phala's dstack. The developers document an end-to-end demo of the workflow primitives.
The design trusts the hardware attestation path, Docker, pinned components and human code review. A compromised guest host kernel or container runtime defeats those guarantees, and published workflow bundles are hashed but lack publisher signatures 1.
Public source and documentation describe an end-to-end implementation on commercial confidential hardware.
- R1 met: the reference documentation defines artifacts, workflow manifests, certificates and trust assumptions 1.
- R2 met through a public reference implementation and documented end-to-end demo on Phala's Intel TDX stack. The demo exercises owner approval, attested release and dependency certificates 1.
- R3 not met: reference code and a demo do not establish a production-grade evaluation workflow or another party's reliance on its result 1.
Assessed use: composing owner-approved confidential workflow stages on Intel TDX
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What it is
Cove is an open-source reference implementation of confidential multi-party verification. Its developers describe workflows over private artifacts inside trusted execution environments, with public certificates that bind each stage's claims to the measured stage that produced them 1.
How it works
A workflow is a directed acyclic graph. Each stage has a deterministically compiled manifest, represented as a Docker Compose file in the reference architecture. Its hash identifies the stage, and each asset owner approves the manifests allowed to access that owner's encrypted artifact 1.
At runtime, a stage verifies predecessor certificates and preconditions before requesting decryption keys. The owner's service releases keys only when the attestation matches the approved stage and provisioner identity. The stage runs its workloads, encrypts declared outputs and emits a certificate binding the manifest, admitted inputs, verified predecessors, outputs and results 1.
An external verifier starts with the terminal certificate, workflow bytes and vendor attestation roots. The verifier rederives manifest hashes and recursively checks predecessor certificates. Long-running services can bind their live TLS keys to their stage certificate through remote-attestation TLS 1.