How do you keep a record of decisions made with AI agents?
Keep each decision where it was made. A proposal an agent filed should carry the decision and who made it. A discussion should end with a kept transcript and summary. Then add the four things no system can fill in for you: the reason, the owner of the result, the agent or role it concerns, and a review date.
"Who decided that?" is the question that turns a working agent into a ghost agent. The agent is still running. The decision behind it lives in a chat thread nobody can find, made by a person who has since moved on.
Two places decisions are made
| Where the decision happens | What should be kept | In agent.ceo |
|---|---|---|
| An agent asks before acting | The proposal, the decision, the time | A proposal waits in the approvals queue. An admin approves or rejects it, and the decision is kept |
| People and agents discuss a change | What was said, and a summary | An ended text meeting keeps its transcript and summary. Non-members are refused |
| Everywhere else | The decision itself | Not recorded for you. Write it down |
The third row is the honest one. agent.ceo does not claim a per-action, tamper-resistant audit trail. What it keeps are the two specific records above. A plan that assumes more than that will have gaps you only find during an incident.
Rendering diagram…
The fields no system fills
A kept decision tells you what and when. It rarely tells you why, or who answers for the result.
| Field | Why it matters later |
|---|---|
| What was decided | One sentence someone else can read |
| Who decided, and when | From the proposal or the meeting record |
| Why | The part that lets a successor disagree for the right reason |
| Which agent or role | So the decision survives renaming and reassignment |
| Owner of the result | A named person or team, not "the team" |
| Review date | A date, not "ongoing" |
A register that fits in a file
2026-10-29 | role: inventory-reporter | decided: key scoped to read:agents only
by: ops admin (approval record) | why: report job must not change agents
owner: IT ops | review: 2027-01-29
One line per decision is enough, if every line has all six parts.
Four habits that keep the record honest
- Decide on the record, not beside it. Approving in the approvals queue keeps the decision. Approving in chat and then clicking loses the reason.
- End meetings. An ended meeting has a kept transcript and summary. A meeting left open is a conversation, not a record.
- Read it back. After you decide, read the proposal again and confirm the decision is on it.
- Review on the date. A decision about an agent's authority goes stale when the agent's job changes.
Why this matters for accountability
When an agent's action causes a problem, the first question is who authorised it. A kept decision answers that with a name and a time. The rest of the answer, covering who owned the outcome and why it was allowed, comes from the register. More on that in who is accountable when an AI agent makes a mistake?
FAQ
How do you keep a record of decisions made with AI agents?
Keep each decision where it was made. A proposal an agent filed should carry the decision and who made it. A discussion should end with a kept transcript and summary. Then add what no system records for you: the owner, the reason, and when to review it.
Does agent.ceo keep an audit trail of every agent action?
agent.ceo does not claim a per-action, tamper-resistant audit trail. What it keeps are specific records: a decision on an agent's proposal, and the transcript and summary of an ended text meeting. Plan your record around those, plus the fields you keep yourself.
What should a decision record about an AI agent contain?
What was decided, who decided it, when, why, which agent or role it concerns, who owns the result, and when it will be reviewed. The first three can come from the system. The rest you write down.
Related: How to run a text meeting in agent.ceo · How to approve or reject an agent's proposal