Agent Output Provenance Ledger (Retention)

Agent Output Provenance Ledger (Retention)

1. 01

   Assign a persistent run identifier to every orchestrated workflow at the moment of kickoff

   The identifier must survive across all downstream agents in the chain, so a single client deliverable can be traced back to the exact model version, prompt revision, and tool call that produced it. Store it in the same system the retainer report pulls from.

2. 02

   Log each agent handoff with timestamp, input hash, and output hash before the next agent consumes the payload

   Hashing the payload at each boundary catches silent mutation, where an intermediate agent rewrites a field the next agent depends on. A 2026 Anthropic report on model incidents showed that unlogged intermediate state is the hardest failure class to reconstruct after the fact.

3. 03

   Tag every artifact with its provenance class: human-authored, agent-drafted, or agent-executed

   Client-facing copy, CRM writes, and social posts carry different disclosure obligations. A removal tool for C2PA content credentials now circulates publicly, which means provenance claims need an internal record rather than reliance on embedded file metadata.

4. 04

   Reconcile the ledger against the client's contracted deliverable list at each retainer cycle close

   Flag any artifact that shipped without a matching ledger entry. Unmatched entries are the leading indicator that a workflow ran outside the governed path, often from a team member testing a prompt directly in a vendor console.

5. 05

   Route any artifact whose provenance class is ambiguous to a named human reviewer before it leaves the agency

   Ambiguity usually means an agent rewrote a human draft past the point of authorship. The reviewer either confirms the human contribution is substantive or reclassifies the artifact as agent-drafted.

6. 06

   Publish a quarterly provenance summary to the client alongside the standard performance report

   Show counts by provenance class and the percentage of artifacts with complete chain records. This converts an internal control into a retention asset, since clients in regulated verticals increasingly ask who or what produced each asset.