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Sigilbase

Creating documents from templates#

SigilSign generates documents from structured templates: you pick a template, fill in its declared variables, and Sigilbase renders a deterministic PDF whose SHA-256 becomes the document's identity forever. This is document generation, not a word processor — the point is the ledgered, hashable output.

How it works#

  1. Pick a template. The house templates (a mutual NDA, a simple services agreement, a policy-acknowledgement notice, a data-processing addendum starter, and an internal authorisation record) are available on every plan; on Business you can author your own. A template is itself versioned: its body and declared variables never change once published, so "which template version produced this document" is a provable fact, not a guess.
  2. Fill in the variables. Each template declares its inputs — text, dates, yes/no choices, lists. Your draft re-renders and re-hashes on every change; nothing is recorded until you finalise.
  3. Finalise. The rendered PDF is stored and hashed as a normal document version, document.published is appended to your stream, and a second event — document.created_from_template — records the provenance: the template version's own hash and a hash of the exact variable values. The values themselves stay out of the ledger; the hash proves which inputs produced the document without exposing them (an opt-in keeps them on the draft for your own reference).

Determinism, stated plainly#

The same template version plus the same variable values produces a byte-identical PDF — fonts embedded, no timestamps or randomness in the render. That means a generated document is reproducible: anyone holding the inputs can regenerate the exact bytes and compare hashes. Correction is a new version; a finalised version never changes.

The boundary#

Templates are starting points prepared by Sigilbase, not legal advice — review them, and take advice where the stakes warrant it. Where a template contemplates signature, the signature collected is a simple electronic signature with an independently verifiable record; see What a Sigilbase signature proves.