Fabric: provenance and lineage

Fabric is DICE’s provenance layer. Every time a thread is derived from another — shipped to another organization or sliced into new threads — Fabric records the link. The Fabric explorer shows that history as a graph, so you can trace a thread upstream to its origins and downstream to everything made from it, even when other links in the chain belong to other organizations.

A lineage chain in the Fabric explorer: every transfer and slice leaves a permanent link, so provenance survives across organizations — without exposing anything the owners didn't disclose.

Note

Fabric availability depends on your organization’s configuration — the lineage surface appears when Shipments or Slicing is enabled. If you don’t see it, it isn’t enabled for your organization (see the FAQ).

Open the explorer

On a thread’s detail page, the Lineage card summarizes provenance: what this thread was Created from and what was Derived from this thread (each row labeled Shipment or Slice). Click View provenance to open the full explorer — the Provenance page at /app/threads/<id>/fabric.

A thread with no Fabric history shows “No lineage yet”: links appear here once it is transferred or sliced.

The explorer maps lineage left to right — here fan blades sliced from the billet they were machined from, with the inbound shipment link behind them.

Reading the graph

The graph is a left-to-right lineage map — upstream sources on the left, downstream derivations on the right. Click Show graph legend for the in-app Lineage legend; here is what it covers.

Nodes are threads

Each node is a thread. Its state tells you how much of it you can see:

• Your thread — the thread you opened, or a thread your team owns. Opens its live data.
• Openable — you have live access to this thread and can open its live view.
• Disclosed only — no live access. Only the data disclosed through Fabric is visible.

That last state is the important one: threads owned by other organizations appear in your graph, but you see only what their owner chose to disclose — typically the thread’s identity plus whichever assets were shared downstream.

Each card shows a thumbnail — when you have live access to the thread — and a Thread Version selector that reports which version you are currently viewing: a green Live marker for live data, or a locked kind-and-date label such as Transfer · Jul 6, 2026 when you are viewing a fixed version (see Versions). A card with more than one version also carries a count of its fixed versions, and the thread you opened keeps a highlighted border. An assembly card is marked Assembly · N Parts, and a card that is a part of an assembly shows a Part of ⟨name⟩ chip you can follow to the parent.

Links are derivations

Edges between nodes are Fabric Links, and each has a kind:

• Transfer — cross-organization derivation that changes ownership (a shipment).
• Slice — same-team derivation; ownership of the source is unchanged (see Slicing).

Use Expand graph for a full-screen view of large lineages — drag to pan, scroll to zoom, and click a node to inspect it.

Inspecting a thread node

Selecting a node opens a detail panel. For your own or openable threads it shows the live thread. For Disclosed only threads it shows the disclosed view:

• Data — the disclosed data fields.
• Files — disclosed images, media, and documents.
• Identifiers — disclosed identifiers.

Counts like “3/7 disclosed” tell you how much of the upstream thread you’re seeing. A notice reminds you: “You are viewing this upstream thread as disclosed through one Fabric Link, not its live data.” Items the source later pulled back are marked Removed or Redacted.

Versions

A thread can exist as more than one Thread Version: its Live state — the current data, when you have live access — plus a fixed version for each point it was transferred, sliced, or had a disclosure pushed down its chain. The Thread Version selector lives on each node’s card. Open it to move between versions; options are labeled by kind and the date the version came into being, such as Slice · Jul 6, 2026 or Transfer · Jul 6, 2026. A fixed version shows the thread exactly as it was captured at that moment, while Live always reflects the current data. What you see everywhere else — the detail panel included — follows the version you pick.

Assembly

When the selected node is an assembly — or a part of one — the detail panel adds an Assembly section listing its attached parts. Each part links to its own Fabric view, and a parent row takes you up to the assembly it is installed in. This section is version-faithful: with Live selected it shows the assembly’s current parts; with a fixed version selected it shows the parts exactly as they were captured in that version. Parts that were not included in a fixed version simply do not appear.

Inspecting a link

Selecting an edge opens the Link inspector, with three tabs:

• Context — the link’s Source and Target threads and its Disclosures: which fields, files, identifiers, and certificates flow through this link. A link with no disclosed assets is marked “structure-only — no assets are disclosed through it.” Items show Included, Redacted, or Removed.
• Events — the activity disclosed through this link (see below).
• Timeline — the Disclosure timeline: every disclosure revision on this link, who made it, and when the event cursor advanced.

The event feed and what you don’t see

Disclosed threads and links carry an event feed — a projected slice of the source’s Transaction History. Two things shape what appears:

• The event cursor. Sources control how far the feed extends. A link marked Locked has “disclosed events fixed at” a point in time; Open means no event cursor has been fixed for this link yet. Sources can advance the cursor when they push a disclosure.
• Withheld items are omitted. Events about assets the source never disclosed to you simply do not appear — there is no placeholder or count. An event you can see may carry a Redacted marker when the source disclosed that something happened but withheld the details.

So an upstream feed that looks short isn’t broken; you’re seeing exactly what was disclosed, and nothing about what wasn’t.

Acting from the explorer

The Provenance actions menu offers, depending on your access:

• Review updates — review what upstream sources have disclosed to this thread (see Disclosures and updates).
• Push disclosure — select one of your own source threads in the graph, then push more disclosure down its fabric chain.
• Slice this thread — derive new threads from this one (see Slicing).