Every team running AI agents keeps logs. Almost none of them can answer the question that actually gets asked in a dispute: why should anyone believe them?
A log is a record your system keeps about itself. It is useful for debugging, indispensable for operations, and — on its own — close to worthless as proof. This is a primer on the difference, and on what a signed execution receipt adds that a log cannot.
What evidence actually demands
Strip away the legal vocabulary and a record has to satisfy four things before a sceptical outsider should rely on it:
Integrity. It has not been altered since it was created — and if it has, that fact is detectable.
