Provenance Gap

A break in the chain of generation metadata that occurs when an AI-generated asset crosses a tool boundary — for example, exporting from Midjourney to Photoshop to ComfyUI. Each tool transition risks losing provenance data because tools use incompatible metadata formats and most editing software discards generation-specific fields on save.

Provenance gaps are the multi-tool equivalent of metadata stripping. When an image moves from Midjourney (IPTC/EXIF metadata) to Photoshop (XMP sidecar) to ComfyUI (PNG tEXt chunks), each transition can silently discard the previous tool's provenance data. Photoshop does not understand Midjourney's generation parameters; ComfyUI does not read Photoshop's edit history. The result is an asset whose final state cannot be traced back to its origin.

Closing provenance gaps requires an external system of record — a DAM or provenance store — that captures metadata at each tool boundary before the transition occurs. This creates a unified lineage graph that spans tools, rather than relying on each tool to preserve its predecessor's metadata. For compliance purposes, provenance gaps are especially problematic because they can make it impossible to prove an asset's AI-generated origin after post-processing.