ProofOps - Proof of Work for Real-World Industrial Work

Industrial maintenance has a trust problem.

When a factory hires a technician to repair critical equipment, proof of completion is usually scattered across photos, PDFs, sensor readings, checklists, emails, chats, and invoices. Supervisors manually reconcile that evidence, contractors wait for approval, disputes are difficult to resolve, and the final payment is disconnected from whether the work was actually proven.

ProofOps turns that fragmented process into one verifiable workflow.

It is an AI-assisted industrial maintenance and settlement platform where:

the factory defines the work → payment is protected in escrow → the technician submits private evidence → Ai verifies the evidence → a human supervisor makes the final decision → the smart contract releases payment → the equipment receives a tamper-evident service record.

The Problem We Solve

Consider a conveyor motor operating at 94°C when its safe threshold is 70°C.

The factory can hire a technician to repair it, but several questions remain:

• Was the correct machine serviced?

• Was the required component actually replaced?

• Do the before-and-after photographs match the work order?

• Does the maintenance report agree with the visual evidence?

• Did the sensor readings actually improve?

• Who approved the completed work?

• Can the contractor prove that payment was promised?

• Can an auditor later verify what happened without trusting an editable spreadsheet?

Today, these are usually separate problems handled by separate systems.

ProofOps connects them.

1. Manager - Define the Outcome and Protect Payment

A factory manager creates a structured maintenance work order against an existing equipment asset or registers a new asset.

The manager defines:

• repair scope

• mandatory evidence

• technician

• supervisor

• deadline

• checklist requirements

• expected sensor outcome

• contractor payment

Before work begins, the manager funds the payment into a Base Sepolia smart-contract escrow using ProofOps demo pUSDC.

This creates an important two-sided guarantee:

The technician knows the payment has been secured.
The factory knows it cannot be released through the normal workflow until evidence has been submitted, verification has been recorded, and the assigned supervisor approves.

2. Technician - Prove the Work

The technician receives the assigned job through a dedicated technician dashboard.

Before evidence submission, ProofOps verifies the equipment identity through its QR-linked asset record.

The technician then submits the complete maintenance evidence package:

• before images

• after images

• component photographs

• signed maintenance report

• before/after sensor readings

• required safety checklist

• technician notes

Raw industrial evidence remains private.

ProofOps hashes each evidence file and creates a deterministic fingerprint of the final evidence package. Only this cryptographic proof is anchored into the blockchain workflow not private factory photographs, documents, storage URLs, or personal information.

This gives us:

Private evidence. Publicly verifiable proof.

3. Ai - Turn Evidence Into Decision Support

Once evidence is submitted, the job enters the supervisor verification queue.

Gemini performs multimodal analysis across the submitted maintenance evidence and evaluates:

• equipment identity

• before/after image consistency

• component changes

• maintenance report contents

• required work completion

• checklist completion

• sensor readings

• contradictions

• missing evidence

• risk flags

AI output is converted into structured verification results instead of an unbounded chat response.

ProofOps then applies deterministic application logic around the AI result and creates a canonical verification report that can itself be cryptographically hashed.

Most importantly:

Gemini does not control payment.

If evidence is blurry, incomplete, contradictory, or uncertain, the system can surface that uncertainty instead of silently treating the work as valid.

AI is used for what it is good at rapidly understanding fragmented evidence.

It is not used as the final authority.

4. Human Supervisor - Accountability Stays Human

Industrial work has safety, financial, and operational consequences.

That is why ProofOps is intentionally human-in-the-loop.

The assigned supervisor receives Gemini's findings together with the original supporting evidence and can:

• inspect every requirement

• review evidence references

• evaluate AI confidence

• override individual findings

• add a review note

• approve the work

• request correction

• raise a dispute

The human supervisor remains responsible for the final decision.

This is central to our Industrial 5.0 approach:

AI increases human capability rather than removing human accountability.

5. Smart Contract - Enforce the Outcome

After evidence exists and verification has been recorded, the supervisor can approve the completed work.

The ProofOps escrow contract then releases the protected pUSDC payment directly to the assigned technician.

The contract enforces the workflow through explicit roles and states.

It prevents actions such as:

• unauthorized evidence submission

• unauthorized verification

• payment without evidence

• payment without a verification report

• double settlement

• settlement while disputed

• duplicate work-order identifiers

If a dispute is raised, settlement is blocked and the dispute must follow the contract's resolution flow.

Blockchain is therefore not being used simply because this is a Web3 hackathon.

It solves the part of the problem that requires shared trust and enforceable settlement between organizations that may not share the same internal database.

6. Equipment Passport - Preserve the Proven History

When payment is successfully released, ProofOps records a maintenance event against the equipment's on-chain passport.

The passport contains minimal cryptographic proof such as:

• equipment hash

• work-order identifier hash

• evidence hash

• AI report hash

• technician

• supervisor

• verification score

• timestamp

• escrow reference

The underlying private evidence remains off-chain.

This creates a tamper-evident maintenance lineage that could be useful to:

• factory operators

• maintenance contractors

• auditors

• insurers

• equipment manufacturers

• future asset owners

Instead of saying:

"Trust our database - this machine was maintained."

ProofOps enables:

"Here is the evidence fingerprint, approval trail, settlement event, and asset history. Verify it."

Why AI + Web3?

ProofOps deliberately gives each layer one clear responsibility.

Gemini

Understands messy real-world evidence.

Human Supervisor

Provides judgment and accountability.

Supabase

Protects identity, operational data, and private evidence.

Base Sepolia

Provides shared transaction state and settlement.

Smart Contracts

Enforce payment rules and prevent unilateral changes to the settlement workflow.

Equipment Passport

Preserves minimal tamper-evident maintenance history.

No technology exists merely as a badge.

Each solves a different trust problem.

Why ProofOps Fits Industrial 5.0

Industrial 5.0 is not simply about replacing workers with automation.

ProofOps is built around collaboration between workers, AI, cloud infrastructure, and programmable settlement.

It supports:

Human-centric operations
Technicians and supervisors remain active participants rather than being replaced by autonomous agents.

AI-assisted productivity
Gemini reduces the effort required to compare images, reports, requirements, and sensor data.

Smarter industrial workflows
Maintenance moves through a structured lifecycle instead of disconnected communication channels.

Safer operations
Work requirements, evidence, measurements, and human approval remain visible and auditable.

Digital finance and settlement
Contractor payment becomes directly connected to the verified maintenance workflow.

Web2 → Web3 adoption
Users interact with a familiar operational dashboard while blockchain is used only where shared verification and settlement create real value.

Working Prototype

ProofOps is a functional end-to-end product rather than a static concept.

The current prototype includes:

Manager Experience

• organization dashboard

• equipment management

• work-order creation

• technician and supervisor assignment

• requirement definition

• payment configuration

• equipment passport registration

• pUSDC faucet support

• token approval

• on-chain work-order creation

• escrow funding

• blockchain/database synchronization

Technician Experience

• assigned-job dashboard

• equipment QR verification

• private evidence upload

• before/after images

• component evidence

• service report upload

• sensor readings

• safety checklist

• SHA-256 evidence hashing

• canonical evidence-package hashing

• on-chain evidence submission

Supervisor Experience

• verification queue

• Gemini multimodal verification

• structured requirement results

• confidence and risk findings

• evidence review

• human overrides

• approval notes

• correction requests

• disputes

• on-chain verification recording

• escrow settlement

Auditability

• equipment passports

• payment status

• blockchain transaction records

• work-order lifecycle

• activity timeline

• evidence hashes

• AI report hashes

Technical Architecture

ProofOps is built as a cloud-native full-stack application using:

Frontend & Application
Next.js, React, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS

Database & Private Evidence
Supabase PostgreSQL, Authentication, Row Level Security, and private Storage

AI
Gemini multimodal verification with structured output and server-side execution

Blockchain
Solidity smart contracts deployed on Base Sepolia

Contracts

• WorkOrderEscrow

• EquipmentPassport

• ProofOps Demo USDC (pUSDC)

Web3 Integration
Wagmi + Viem

Contract Development
Hardhat 3 + Hardhat Ignition + OpenZeppelin

Deployment
Vercel

The blockchain remains the source of truth for settlement state, while Supabase manages private operational information.

Security by Design

ProofOps deliberately avoids putting sensitive industrial information on a public chain.

Raw images, reports, filenames, private URLs, and personal information remain off-chain.

Only minimal hashes and settlement state are anchored on-chain.

Additional safeguards include:

• role-based application access

• Supabase Row Level Security

• private evidence storage

• short-lived evidence access

• server-side Gemini execution

• structured AI output validation

• deterministic verification logic

• human approval before payment

• SafeERC20 transfers

• reentrancy protection

• explicit contract state transitions

• dispute blocking

• transaction receipt confirmation before database synchronization

Real-World Potential

ProofOps begins with industrial maintenance, but the underlying model is broader:

define work → protect value → prove work → verify evidence → human approval → settle → preserve history

The same infrastructure could extend to:

• solar maintenance

• HVAC servicing

• industrial inspections

• construction milestones

• equipment installation

• electrical maintenance

• logistics inspections

• warranty servicing

• field-service contractors

Our goal is not to tokenize industrial maintenance.

Our goal is to build a trust layer between physical work and digital settlement.

ProofOps gives factories confidence that approved work has supporting proof, gives technicians stronger payment assurance, and creates verifiable maintenance records for organizations that otherwise have to trust fragmented internal systems.

ProofOps - Work proven. Payment protected. History preserved.

Progress During ChainHack

During ChainHack, we took ProofOps from the initial product concept to a working end-to-end Industrial 5.0 prototype.

We built the complete three-role maintenance workflow across Factory Manager, Technician, and Supervisor rather than demonstrating isolated AI or blockchain components.

Product & UX

We designed and implemented:

• ProofOps public landing experience

• role-based authentication

• manager command center

• technician workspace

• supervisor verification queue

• work-order lifecycle

• equipment management

• payment dashboard

• activity/audit trail

• equipment passport views

• responsive production UI

Industrial Workflow

We implemented the complete maintenance lifecycle:

Create → Fund → Repair → Submit Evidence → AI Verify → Human Review → Settle → Record

Managers can create maintenance work orders, assign workers, define evidence requirements and protect payment.

Technicians can verify equipment, upload private maintenance evidence, enter sensor readings and complete required checklists.

Supervisors can inspect the resulting evidence, run Gemini verification, override AI findings and make the final approval decision.

AI Verification

We integrated Gemini into the real supervisor workflow.

The AI pipeline analyzes:

• before/after images

• equipment identity

• maintenance reports

• requirement completion

• sensor readings

• contradictions

• missing evidence

• risk flags

AI responses are validated as structured data and converted into an auditable verification result.

AI is intentionally not allowed to release funds - human approval remains mandatory.

Evidence Integrity & Privacy

We implemented private evidence storage using Supabase and built deterministic cryptographic evidence hashing.

Raw industrial evidence remains private.

The blockchain receives only minimal hashes and settlement information, allowing ProofOps to preserve verifiability without exposing sensitive operational data.

Smart Contracts

We built and integrated three Solidity contracts:

WorkOrderEscrow
Protects contractor payment and enforces the work-order state machine.

EquipmentPassport
Records minimal tamper-evident maintenance events for registered equipment.

ProofOps Demo USDC (pUSDC)
A six-decimal Base Sepolia-only faucet token with no real-world value, used to demonstrate the settlement workflow safely.

The escrow contract includes:

• role validation

• protected funding

• evidence-hash submission

• verification-hash recording

• supervisor-controlled release

• dispute handling

• duplicate settlement protection

• deadline behavior

• SafeERC20 transfers

• reentrancy protection

Base Sepolia Integration

We deployed the Web3 workflow to Base Sepolia and connected it directly to the frontend using Wagmi and Viem.

The product handles:

• wallet connection

• network validation

• equipment registration

• pUSDC faucet

• token allowance

• work-order creation

• escrow funding

• evidence proof submission

• verification proof recording

• payment release

• transaction confirmation

• contract/database reconciliation

• explorer links

Backend & Security

We implemented:

• Supabase Auth

• PostgreSQL schema

• Row Level Security

• private evidence storage

• role-based authorization

• server-side Gemini calls

• structured input/output validation

• deterministic evidence hashing

• blockchain state reconciliation

• environment-secret separation

Engineering & Deployment

We built ProofOps using:

Next.js + TypeScript + Supabase + Gemini + Solidity + Hardhat + OpenZeppelin + Wagmi + Viem + Base Sepolia.

The application is deployed through Vercel and the smart-contract deployment is reproducible through Hardhat Ignition.

By the end of the hackathon, ProofOps became a working prototype capable of demonstrating the complete journey of one real industrial maintenance job:

a machine requires repair → the factory protects payment → the technician proves the work → Gemini verifies the evidence → a human supervisor approves → the smart contract pays the technician → the equipment receives a tamper-evident maintenance record.

That full lifecycle is the core achievement of our ChainHack build.