AI model provenance: Supply Chain: Model and Image Provenance

Day 67: Supply Chain: Model and Image Provenance
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This guide focuses on AI model provenance for production systems, with practical trade-offs for reliability, security, and cost. Your coding agent image is part of the supply chain. If ECS/Lambda pulls :latest from a mutable tag with no attestation, you are running strangers’ code next to your repos. Aim for SLSA-ish provenance: signed images, pinned digests, verified before run.
⚡ TL;DR: Build in CI, sign with Sigstore/Notation, pin digests in task defs, verify admission. Track model IDs/versions the same way.

AI model provenance: production guidance

json
{
  "image": "123.dkr.ecr.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/agent@sha256:4f2c…"
}
bash
# ✅ verify before deploy
cosign verify \
  --certificate-identity-regexp 'CI' \
  --certificate-oidc-issuer 'https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com' \
  123.dkr.ecr.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/agent@sha256:4f2c…

Model provenance

Record provider, model ID, and inference profile ARN in the run audit. Refuse runs when the model ID is not in an allowlist.
python
ALLOW_MODELS = {
    "anthropic.claude-sonnet-4-20250514-v1:0",
    "amazon.nova-pro-v1:0",
}

def assert_model(mid: str):
    if mid not in ALLOW_MODELS:
        raise RuntimeError(f"model_not_allowed:{mid}")
❌ Floating tags + mystery fine-tunes from a personal HF account in prod agents.

Closing checklist

  • [ ] Digest-pinned images
  • [ ] Signature verification in deploy
  • [ ] Model allowlists
  • [ ] SBOM for agent images
  • [ ] Audit image digest per run

Series navigation

Day 66: Audit Trails Humans Can Replay · Day 68: Abuse and Cost Attacks Last updated September 11, 2026 Related: Day 76: p99 of Agents: Queueing, Not Just Model Latency; Day 78: Load Shedding When the Model Is Sick; Day 92: Threat Model an AI Feature.

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