Audit trail
A chronological record of who accessed a system and what operations they performed, enough to reconstruct events.
An audit trail is a chronological record of system activity, showing who accessed a system and what operations were performed, sufficient to reconstruct and examine the sequence of events. NIST's glossary gives several closely related definitions of the term. For agents, the trail must record both identities, the agent and the principal, along with the mandate relied on, each tool call and its result, and any human approvals.
Agent Minute explains this term on 16 October 2026.
Related terms
Automatic loggingBuilt-in recording of events while a high-risk AI system runs, so its operation can be traced afterwards.Evidence packA bundle of records that reconstructs one agent action: identity, mandate, authentication, inputs, calls, outputs and approvals.Tamper-evident logA log built so that any later change, deletion or reordering of entries can be detected.Record retentionKeeping records that evidence compliance for a minimum period, so they are available to supervisors and in disputes.