traces-and-audit

Original：🇺🇸 English

Translated

Auditing memory traces and debugging.

1installs

Sourcetracemem/tracemem-skills

Added on2026-03-01

NPX Install

npx skill4agent add tracemem/tracemem-skills traces-and-audit

SKILL.md Content

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Skill: TraceMem Traces and Audit

Purpose

This skill explains the concept of the Decision Trace as an artifact. Understanding this helps you write better "evidence" into the system.

When to Use

When you need to understand what TraceMem is actually recording.
When generating reports or answering questions about past actions ("Why did you do that?").

When NOT to Use

You generally do not "use" this skill to execute actions, but to inform how you execute them.

Core Rules

The Trace is the Truth: If it's not in the trace, it didn't happen (legally/audit-wise).
Append-Only: You cannot go back and fix history.
Complete Picture: A trace includes your ID, the time, the policy version, the data schema version, and the exact outcomes.

Correct Usage Pattern

Design for Readability: When running a decision, imagine a human reading the trace 6 months later.
- "Why did this agent delete this user?"
- Look at the
```
intent
```
  , look at the
```
context
```
  you added, look at the
```
policy
```
  result.
- If the trace answers the question, you succeeded.
Linking: If you chain decisions (one decision triggers another workflow), reference the parent
```
decision_id
```
in the child's
```
metadata
```
or
```
context
```
.

Searching Past Decisions

Use

decision_search

to query your agent's previous decisions:

Find precedent: Search by text, category, or tags before making a new decision
Check supersession chains: Results include
```
supersedes
```
and
```
superseded_by
```
indicators -- follow the chain to find the current active decision
Filter by status: Use
```
status: "committed"
```
to find only finalized decisions

Tool: decision_search
Parameters:
  - query: "authentication"  (free-text search)
  - category: "architecture"  (optional)
  - tags: ["jwt", "auth"]  (optional, all must match)
  - status: "committed"  (optional)
  - limit: 10  (optional, default 20, max 100)

This is particularly valuable for:

Answering "Why did we decide X?" questions
Avoiding duplicate or contradictory decisions
Building on prior context when making related decisions

Common Mistakes

Phantom Actions: Doing side effects (like calling an external API) without recording it in TraceMem or via a Data Product. This creates "dark matter" — actions that have no record.
Incomplete Evidence: Reading data via a side-channel (not a Data Product) and then acting on it. The trace will show the action but not the data that justified it.
Not searching before deciding: Always check
```
decision_search
```
for existing decisions on the same topic before recording a new one.

Safety Notes

Exoneration: A good trace protects you (the agent). If a policy was wrong, the trace proves you followed the policy correctly. If data was bad, the trace proves you acted on the bad data you were given.