---
title: "Public input encoding mismatch"
description: "The circuit and the verifier disagree about how public inputs are ordered, packed, hashed or field-reduced."
type: "failure-mode"
url: "https://zkpick.com/audit/failure-modes/public-input-encoding-mismatch/"
section: "03 Auditing a ZK protocol"
authors:
  - "MarketComp"
publisher: "MarketComp"
version: "1.3"
updated: "2026-09-12"
license: "CC-BY-4.0"
json: "https://zkpick.com/data/audit/failure-modes/public-input-encoding-mismatch.json"
---

*By MarketComp. Updated 2026-09-12. Version 1.3. CC BY 4.0.*

# Public input encoding mismatch

The circuit and the verifier disagree about how public inputs are ordered, packed, hashed or field-reduced. A proof about one statement is accepted as a proof about another, without any component behaving incorrectly in isolation.

**Mitigation:** Define the encoding once, in the specification, and test round-trip equivalence across every implementation of it — circuit, prover, on-chain verifier and client.