Get an approval your client cannot walk back
How a sign-off captures a verified email, a server-observed IP and timestamp, and a SHA-256 fingerprint of the exact version approved.
Walkthrough · 4 min read
An email saying "looks great" is a record of a mood, not of a version. It names nothing, so when the person who sent it leaves the company there is nothing left to point at. A Stria sign-off is built to survive that conversation, and it takes your client about a minute.
- Publish the version you want approved. Each published version freezes into a snapshot that cannot be edited afterwards.
- Send the review link. Your client opens it with no account, no password and nothing to install.
- They press Approve and enter their email address. Stria emails them a six-digit code.
- They enter the code and tick the consent statement, which is shown in full above the button rather than hidden behind a link.
- The deliverable locks. You get a PDF certificate you can send to anyone.
What the record keeps is the part that matters in a disagreement: the email address the code was actually sent to and consumed from, the IP address the server observed rather than one the form supplied, the browser and device string, the exact wording of the consent they agreed to, the version number, and a SHA-256 fingerprint computed over that version.
The code itself is never stored. Stria keeps only a keyed hash of it, with the key held outside the table, so the code cannot be recovered from the record later. It expires after ten minutes, allows five wrong attempts before it stops accepting guesses, and works exactly once. Your client can request at most five codes for the same deliverable and email address in any fifteen-minute window.
Note: Approvals are append-only. Nothing in Stria can edit or delete one after the fact, including the database owner. A signed deliverable also cannot be deleted, because the approval depends on it.
Important: This is a simple electronic signature: identity is proven by control of an email inbox. It is not an advanced or qualified signature, and Stria does not describe it as one. For most freelance work that is the right level and the honest description of it.
Open Deliverables — in your Stria workspace.