Define and recursively set
The increment is -measurable, so is -measurable by induction; hence is predictable. Conditional expectation preserves integrability, so and
are integrable and adapted. Their increments satisfy
so is a martingale.
For uniqueness, suppose are two such decompositions. Then
is both a martingale and predictable, with . Since is -measurable,
Induction gives , and therefore and . This proves the Doob decomposition of an adapted integrable process.