Hierarchical verification propagation in distributed task delegation systems

A system for maintaining data integrity during hierarchical task verification in a distributed computing environment, comprising:

• a persistent data store storing a plurality of task specification records organized in a bounded-depth tree-structured hierarchy, each task specification record having at most one parent task specification record identifier referencing another task specification record, such that the task specification records form a forest of rooted trees with a configured maximum delegation depth;
• a durable message queue providing at-least-once delivery of asynchronous processing jobs;
• one or more processors coupled to the persistent data store and the durable message queue, configured to, upon receiving a deferred propagation job from the durable message queue indicating that a child task specification record has reached a terminal verification state:
• (a) identify the parent task specification record referenced by the child task specification record's parent identifier;
• (b) acquire a row-level exclusion lock on the parent task specification record in the persistent data store within a database transaction;
• (c) query all sibling task specification records sharing the same parent identifier;
• (d) determine whether all sibling task specification records have reached terminal verification states, the terminal verification states comprising VERIFIED_PASS, VERIFIED_FAIL, FULFILLED, and REMEDIATED;
• (e) if all sibling task specification records are in terminal verification states, compute an aggregate verification outcome based on the terminal verification states of all siblings, wherein the aggregate outcome is a passing outcome if and only if all siblings are in passing terminal states, the passing terminal states being VERIFIED_PASS and FULFILLED;
• (f) atomically transition the parent task specification record through a series of intermediate states in a defined state machine to a terminal verification state corresponding to the aggregate outcome, each transition incrementing a version counter;
• (g) append a cryptographically hash-chained audit entry to an append-only audit store within the same database transaction as step (f), the audit entry comprising a cryptographic hash of a canonicalized payload and a reference to the preceding entry's hash in the same task specification record's chain;
• (h) if the parent task specification record itself references a further parent identifier, enqueue a deferred propagation job to a durable message queue for the further parent task specification record, the deferred propagation job causing a separate worker process to perform steps (a) through (g) for the further parent task specification record in a separate database transaction, up to a configured maximum delegation depth.