Why Audit Everything
Comprehensive audit trails serve multiple purposes: regulatory compliance demonstration, security incident investigation, debugging AI behavior, and accountability for context changes. Design auditing as a core capability, not an afterthought.
What to Audit
Access Events
Log every context read with who accessed what, when, and for what purpose. Include the query or access pattern used, enabling reconstruction of exactly what information was retrieved.
Modification Events
Capture context changes with before and after values. Record the change source (user, system, integration), reason codes where applicable, and approval chain for regulated changes.
Administrative Events
Track permission changes, policy updates, and configuration modifications. These events are critical for understanding how access controls evolved over time.
Audit Architecture
Write audit logs to immutable storage—append-only databases or write-once cloud storage. Never allow audit log modification or deletion except through controlled retention policies. Implement tamper detection for audit integrity.
Query and Analysis
Make audit logs queryable. Index by common investigation dimensions: user, resource, time range, and action type. Integrate with SIEM systems for automated anomaly detection and alerting.
