Portability and Recovery

Idea Ledger uses versioned database migrations. Schema version 2 adds source identity, explicit revisions, source hashes, Unicode offset units, proposal staging, and database guards for Source Record immutability and Card deletion.

The private portability tool exports records, Snapshots, Results, idempotency keys, and proposals into a deterministic JSON document with a SHA-256 payload checksum. Export files are created with owner-only permissions.

Restore behavior:

  • verifies format and checksum;
  • refuses exports from a newer unsupported schema;
  • refuses to overwrite a non-empty Ledger;
  • preserves database IDs and visible Card identifiers;
  • restores into a migrated empty database;
  • supports round-trip comparison of every exported table.

The tool is an operational recovery capability, not a public sharing format. Exports contain private Ledger content and must be protected like the database itself.