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Witness

Laravel MIT licensed Experimental

Send a PDF for simple electronic signature without putting the document workflow in somebody else's SaaS account. Witness runs in your Laravel Cloud account, keeps originals and completed documents in your private bucket, and gives every completed envelope an audit trail and Certificate of Completion.

Deploy Witness as a supporter Or run it yourself, free Read the Docs

Work in progress. Available to supporters.

Replaces
Hosted simple e-signature software
Runs on
Your Laravel Cloud account
Needs
Compute · Database · Queue · Object storage · Scheduler

What it signs

Witness deliberately stays with simple electronic signatures. It does not turn a typed name or drawing into a qualified signature or a legal opinion.

  • One PDF, parallel signers

    Upload a PDF, place signature, initials, date, text and checkbox fields, then notify every signer together.

  • Code before consent

    A signing link opens an emailed six-digit verification-code challenge before the signer records electronic-record consent.

  • Typed or drawn marks

    Signers can type or draw signatures and initials, complete their assigned fields, or decline the envelope.

  • Completed PDF and certificate

    The queue stamps every completed field into a final PDF and delivers it to the sender and each signer.

  • Templates and lifecycle

    Reuse PDFs with named signer roles, send reminders, set expiry, void with a reason, and purge eligible envelopes deliberately.

  • Bounded agent actions

    Six MCP tools list templates and envelopes, read status, or preview and confirm sending, reminding and voiding.

  • The final PDF is the durable anchor

    Witness chains lifecycle events in the database and prints the original-document hash, final-content hash and audit-chain head into the Certificate of Completion. Anyone can upload a final PDF to /verify: Witness hashes it during the request, reveals only a completed match, and does not store the upload. The chain is tamper-evident, not magic — a database operator who can rewrite every row can recompute it.

  • Simple means simple

    Email access, an emailed code and explicit e-record consent are useful evidence for ordinary back-office agreements. They are not identity-document verification, an advanced or qualified electronic signature, a digital seal, notarisation or advice that a document may be signed electronically in your jurisdiction.

Witness vs hosted e-signature suites

Own the narrow workflow; buy the assurance levels you need

Docusign, Dropbox Sign and Adobe Acrobat Sign serve broader agreement programmes, deeper routing and regulated identity workflows. Witness is for an agency or small back office whose real job is one PDF, parallel signers and a defensible completion record on infrastructure it already operates.

Witness feature comparison
Feature Witness Witness is MIT licensed and Experimental. Its source repository is public, and it provides simple electronic signatures only. Docusign Hosted agreement platform with identity verification, digital signatures and remote online notarisation. Dropbox Sign Hosted e-signatures with templates, audit trails, access controls and eID-backed QES. Adobe Acrobat Sign Hosted agreement signing with parallel routing, audit reports and several identity methods.
Run it in your own account the row we rebuilt Does this well:Your Cloud account Works, but on their terms:Docusign cloud Works, but on their terms:Dropbox cloud Works, but on their terms:Adobe cloud
One PDF, parallel signers the row we rebuilt Does this well:Built in Does this well:Built in Does this well:Built in Does this well:Built in
Code, consent and audit trail the row we rebuilt Does this well:One fixed flow Does this well:Many auth options Does this well:Access-code options Does this well:Many auth options
Final-PDF hash verification the row we rebuilt Does this well:Public verify page Partly, or with a caveat:Certificate and audit Partly, or with a caveat:Hash-backed audit Partly, or with a caveat:Downloadable audit report
Templates, reminders and expiry Does this well:Built in Does this well:Built in Does this well:Built in Does this well:Built in
Sequential and hybrid routing we did not build this Not built:Parallel only Does this well:Built in Partly, or with a caveat:Plan-dependent workflows Does this well:Built in
Advanced or qualified signatures we did not build this Not built:Simple signatures only Does this well:AES and QES Does this well:eID-backed QES Does this well:Digital signatures
Identity-document verification we did not build this Not built:Not built Does this well:Built in Does this well:Select eID methods Does this well:Gateway and Government ID
Cost of the next envelope Does this well:Your infrastructure Works, but on their terms:Plan and usage Works, but on their terms:Plan and usage Works, but on their terms:Plan and usage
Who is on call for signing Partly, or with a caveat:You are Does this well:They are Does this well:They are Does this well:They are
  • Does this well
  • Partly, or with a caveat
  • Not built
  • Works, but on their terms

The honest test

Look at the agreements your back office actually sends. Moving loses little when all three are true.

  • Each envelope starts as one PDF and every signer can act in parallel.
  • Email possession, a verification code and explicit consent are enough evidence for the documents and jurisdictions involved.
  • Your team is willing to operate the Laravel Cloud deployment, mail path and private document bucket it owns.

Then Witness keeps the useful workflow small, inspectable and inside infrastructure you control. Confirm the legal fit for each document yourself.

Keep paying them if

These are the parts we chose not to build, and we are not going to imply otherwise.

  • You need advanced or qualified electronic signatures, digital seals or identity-document verification.
  • You need notarisation, deed witnessing, sequential routing or a complex agreement workflow.
  • You need vendor compliance programmes, broad integrations, an SLA or somebody else on call.
  • You want software to decide whether an electronic signature is valid for a document or jurisdiction.

Small, sharp tools are a deliberate scope, not an unfinished roadmap. Witness stays a simple e-signature application.

Be honest about it

You don't need us to run Witness

The repository is public and MIT licensed. These are the steps, and you are welcome to spend the afternoon doing them by hand.

  1. 1

    Connect the Scalpels team to the GitHub account that should own Witness. Scalpels forks the public source for a different owner, while the Artisan Build account deploys its existing repository directly.

  2. 2

    Deploy through Scalpels with Postgres, a managed queue, private object storage and the scheduler, then set a permanent custom domain before the first envelope. Scalpels sending works by default.

  3. 3

    Open Witness, send a test message from Setup, create an envelope or template, and keep the simple-signature limitations in view for every document and jurisdiction.

Or become a supporter, and Scalpels deploys it for you. It forks it, provisions exactly what it needs on your Laravel Cloud account, and deploys it. The app and the infrastructure are yours either way — the only question is who spends the afternoon.

Deploy Witness as a supporter

Want some help?

After you buy, we will pay for an hour with one of these experts to help you get everything up and running.

  • Artisan Build

    USA

    We run Scalpels, as well as a suite of other tools for developers and development teams.

    Agency Ask for help
    Ask Artisan Build for help

Witness pairs with the rest of the suite

Hone traces the Laravel application around each sender and signer request, Muster checks that the public signing and verification routes stay reachable, and Capstan gives your local agents a self-hosted workspace alongside Witness's own bounded MCP tools.

Hone Muster Capstan