Audit-ready agent actions: signed receipts explained

If your AI agents can write into real systems (CRM, ticketing, code, internal APIs), the hard part is not getting them to work. The hard part is making those writes safe, reviewable, and provable.

Most teams start with "we have logs." Then the first security review or incident happens and the real questions show up:

• Which agent performed this action?
• What exactly was it allowed to do at that moment?
• Was this auto-approved or did a human approve it?
• Can we prove this change really came from our agent system?

Signed action receipts are the simplest primitive that turns "agent writes happened" into audit-ready evidence.

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What a signed receipt is

A signed receipt is a tamper-evident record of an agent action attempt. It captures the essentials of:

• who made the request (the agent identity)
• what was attempted (the action and the target)
• why it was allowed or blocked (the policy outcome)
• whether a human approved it (when required)
• what happened when it executed (success or failure)

It is "signed" so you can detect if the record has been altered later. Think of it like a notarized transaction record, but for agent writes.

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Why ordinary logs aren't enough

Tool logs are useful, but for agent systems they often fall short:

Logs are fragmented

An agent run can touch several tools. Each tool logs differently, and those logs rarely capture the full story of why an action was allowed.

Logs don't include policy and approvals

Security teams want evidence that you applied controls, not just that a call occurred. They want to see the governing policy outcome and any human approval tied to the action.

Logs aren't designed to be tamper-evident proof

Even if logs exist, it can be hard to prove later that nothing was modified, deleted, or forged across the chain of systems involved.

Receipts address these gaps by making the authorization layer the single place where actions are evaluated, executed (or blocked), and recorded consistently.

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What an audit-ready receipt should include

You do not need a complicated format. A useful receipt generally includes:

• Agent identity — Which agent (and ideally which run/instance) made the request
• Action summary — What the agent tried to do and what it was trying to change
• Policy outcome — Allowed, denied, or "needs approval," plus a short explanation
• Approval evidence (if needed) — Who approved or denied, and when
• Execution outcome — Whether the write succeeded, failed, or never ran
• Integrity proof — A tamper-evident marker (the signature) that lets you verify the receipt hasn't changed

This is enough for incident response, audits, and internal reviews, without forcing you to store sensitive payloads.

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How receipts fit into Relynt

Relynt sits between agents and your tools. Instead of agents writing directly, they go through Relynt, which:

1. evaluates the action against policy
2. requests human approval for higher-risk actions
3. forwards allowed actions to the underlying tool
4. emits a signed receipt for every decision

That means you get a consistent, exportable record for every attempted write—across every tool.

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Why this matters operationally

Receipts change the posture from "we hope the agent behaved" to "we can prove what happened."

They help teams:

• roll out agents into production with confidence
• pass enterprise security reviews faster
• investigate incidents without guesswork
• demonstrate control to auditors and customers

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The takeaway

When agents can write, you need more than permissions and logs. You need a system that can answer, clearly and reliably:

• who acted
• what they tried to do
• why it was allowed or blocked
• who approved it (if required)
• and proof that the record is trustworthy

Signed receipts are the simplest building block that makes agent write access governable.