Provenance
Provenance is Cove’s record of where a metadata value came from and how it entered the library. It makes origin inspectable without forcing every field on a record to share one source.
Provenance can associate a value with a user action, provider, scraper, metadata server, scan, API operation, extension, or other source supported by the workflow. Provider endpoint and remote ID can add external identity context.
Provenance describes origin, not truth or permanent ownership. A manually entered value can be more appropriate than an imported one, and a provider-sourced value can later be edited without requiring the provider to change.
Field-level behavior
Section titled “Field-level behavior”One record can combine fields from several sources. Applying new metadata can replace a value and its provenance, merge relationships with their own origins, or leave an existing value unchanged. The visible interface exposes provenance only where the field and workflow preserve it.
File technical values discovered by scanning have a different lifecycle from descriptive metadata. User-specific engagement also should not be interpreted as provider provenance.