Audit Trail
A chronological record of activities, decisions, and changes that provides evidence of what happened, when, by whom, and under what authority.
An audit trail is the evidence record that enables after-the-fact review. Traditional audit trails are logs — records of what happened that can be reviewed during an audit.
The limitation of traditional audit trails is that they record what happened, not whether it was governed. A log entry might show that a deployment occurred at 3:47 PM, but it doesn't show whether appropriate authority was exercised, which constraints were checked, or whether the action was within governance boundaries.
Modern governance audit trails (governance traces) go beyond logging to capture governance context: what constraints were evaluated, what authority was exercised, and whether the action was within or outside boundaries. This transforms audit from reconstruction to inspection.
How Constellation handles this
Constellation goes beyond traditional audit trails. Governance traces capture not just what happened, but the governance context — which constraints were evaluated, what authority was exercised, and whether the action was within boundaries.