k2gl/signed-note

Parse, verify and sign signed notes — the transparency-log / Go sumdb format used by Sigstore Rekor checkpoints — in PHP.

1.0.0 2026-07-01 17:11 UTC

Requires

• php: >=8.1
• k2gl/dsse: ^1.3

Requires (Dev)

• k2gl/phpunit-fluent-assertions: ^12
• laravel/pint: ~1.20.0
• phpstan/phpstan: ^2.1
• phpunit/phpunit: ^10|^11|^12

Suggests

• ext-openssl: Required to verify ECDSA-signed notes, such as Rekor v1 checkpoints.
• ext-sodium: Required for Ed25519 notes (the standard sumdb/checkpoint algorithm).

MIT

• Nickolay Harin

• signing
• note
• supply-chain
• Ed25519
• checkpoint
• sigstore
• rekor
• transparency-log
• signed-note
• sumdb

README

Parse, verify and sign signed notes in PHP — the format Go's sumdb and transparency-log checkpoints (Sigstore Rekor) use. A note is some text, a blank line, then one or more signature lines:

If you think cryptography is the answer to your problem,
then you don't know what your problem is.

— PeterNeumann x08go/ZJkuBS9UG/SffcvIAQxVBtiFupLLr8pAcElZInNIuGUgYN1FFYC2pZSNXgKvqfqdngotpRZb6KE6RyyBwJnAM=

Each signature line is — <name> <base64>, where the base64 decodes to a 4-byte key hash and the raw signature over the text. The cryptography is delegated to [k2gl/dsse].

Install

composer require k2gl/signed-note

Requires PHP 8.1+ with ext-sodium (Ed25519); ext-openssl is needed only for ECDSA-signed notes such as Rekor v1 checkpoints.

Verify

Give a NoteVerifier the keys you trust; it returns the signatures that verify and throws if none do.

use K2gl\SignedNote\Note;
use K2gl\SignedNote\NoteVerifier;
use K2gl\SignedNote\VerifierKey;

$key = VerifierKey::fromString('PeterNeumann+c74f20a3+ARpc2QcUPDhMQegwxbzhKqiBfsVkmqq/LDE4izWy10TW');

$verified = (new NoteVerifier($key))->verify(Note::parse($envelope));
// $verified is the list of NoteSignature that checked out; SignatureVerificationFailed otherwise.

A Rekor checkpoint is a note signed by the log's key. Load that key from its PEM — the key hash is derived the Sigstore way (first four bytes of SHA-256 of the DER key), and any RSA/ECDSA/Ed25519 key works:

$log = VerifierKey::fromPem('rekor.sigstore.dev - 1193050959916656506', $logPublicKeyPem);
(new NoteVerifier($log))->verify(Note::parse($checkpoint));

Sign

use K2gl\SignedNote\SignerKey;

$signer = SignerKey::fromString('PRIVATE+KEY+PeterNeumann+c74f20a3+AYEKFALVFGyNhPJEMzD1QIDr+Y7hfZx09iUvxdXHKDFz');

$note = $signer->sign("hello\n"); // text must end with a newline
echo $note;                       // renders the note with its signature line

The output is byte-for-byte what Go's note.Sign produces (checked against the golang.org/x/mod/sumdb/note test vectors).

Design

• Format only. Note is the generic note; it does not interpret checkpoint fields (origin, tree size, root hash). Parse those from signedText() yourself.
• Fail-closed. A verified result means a trusted key signed the exact text.
• Ed25519 is the standard. VerifierKey::fromString() / SignerKey handle the Ed25519 key strings from Go's note package; fromPem() covers ECDSA/RSA logs.

License

MIT.