From Agent Traces to Trust: A Survey of Evidence Tracing and Execution Provenance in LLM Agents
Updated 1 h ago · first seen 12 Sept 2026
paper_01M29X359BNACM6WNPX6X92ETD
- Published
- 12 Sept 2026
- T1 · 1 h ago
- arXiv
- 2606.04990
- T1 · 1 h ago
- Category
- cs.CR
- T1 · 1 h ago
Abstract
-cross Abstract: Large language model (LLM)-based agents are evolving from passive text generators into autonomous systems capable of planning, tool use, retrieval, memory access, environmental interaction, and multi-agent collaboration. These capabilities expand agent autonomy, but also make agent behavior harder to verify, debug, and audit. Final-answer accuracy alone cannot explain how an output was produced, which evidence supported each claim, whether tool calls were justified, how memory influenced later decisions, or where failures originated. This survey examines evidence tracing and execution provenance as foundations for process-level accountability in trustworthy LLM agents. We define execution provenance as the typed graph of an agent execution and evidence tracing as its projection onto evidence-support relations. This perspective connects retrieval grounding, claim support, tool-use safety, memory lineage, observability, debugging, audit, and recovery within a unified framework. We introduce a taxonomy covering trace sources, evidence and execution units, provenance relations, tracing granularity and timing, representation forms, and trust functions. We then review key methodological directions, including provenance representation, evidence attribution, tool-use provenance, runtime guardrails, provenance-bearing memory, observability, and failure diagnosis. Finally, we discuss benchmarks, datasets, metrics, and open challenges for building provenance-aware, auditable, and recoverable agent systems.
Authors 11
Jiaqi Zhang, Manqing Dong, Mingkai Zheng, Taotao Cai, Xuefei Yin, Yanming Zhu, Yiqi Wang, Yiqun Duan, Zequn Sun, Zhangkai Wu, Zirui Liu
Specification
- Official page
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 1 h agohigh
- Arxiv announce type
- replace
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 1 h agohigh
- arXiv id
- 2606.04990
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 1 h agohigh
- Categories
- cs.AI, cs.CR
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 1 h agohigh
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 1 h agohigh
- Primary category
- cs.CR
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 1 h agohigh
- Published
- 12 Sept 2026
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 1 h agohigh
Each value shows its source, tier and observation time. Conflicting claims are kept side by side and flagged — never averaged. How AI Atlas records facts →
Provenance
Attributed facts
9
Source tiers
T19
Freshest observation
1 h ago
Conflicts
None
No models linked to this paper yet.
- Authors
- Yiqi Wang, Jiaqi Zhang, Zhangkai Wu
As of
Rewind the record: see this entity's attributes exactly as AI Atlas knew them on a given day.
Claim history
Official pageofficial_url1
| Value | Valid from → to | Status | Source | Confidence | Extractor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.04990 | → current | current | arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1 | high | deterministic |
Abstractabstract1
| Value | Valid from → to | Status | Source | Confidence | Extractor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -cross Abstract: Large language model (LLM)-based agents are evolving from passive text generators into autonomous systems capable of planning, tool use, retrieval, memory access, environmental interaction, and multi-agent collaboration. These capabilities expand agent autonomy, but also make agent behavior harder to verify, debug, and audit. Final-answer accuracy alone cannot explain how an output was produced, which evidence supported each claim, whether tool calls were justified, how memory influenced later decisions, or where failures originated. This survey examines evidence tracing and execution provenance as foundations for process-level accountability in trustworthy LLM agents. We define execution provenance as the typed graph of an agent execution and evidence tracing as its projection onto evidence-support relations. This perspective connects retrieval grounding, claim support, tool-use safety, memory lineage, observability, debugging, audit, and recovery within a unified framework. We introduce a taxonomy covering trace sources, evidence and execution units, provenance relations, tracing granularity and timing, representation forms, and trust functions. We then review key methodological directions, including provenance representation, evidence attribution, tool-use provenance, runtime guardrails, provenance-bearing memory, observability, and failure diagnosis. Finally, we discuss benchmarks, datasets, metrics, and open challenges for building provenance-aware, auditable, and recoverable agent systems. | → current | current | arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1 | high | deterministic |
Arxiv announce typearxiv_announce_type1
| Value | Valid from → to | Status | Source | Confidence | Extractor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| replace | → current | current | arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1 | high | deterministic |
arXiv idarxiv_id1
| Value | Valid from → to | Status | Source | Confidence | Extractor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2606.04990 | → current | current | arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1 | high | deterministic |
Categoriescategories1
| Value | Valid from → to | Status | Source | Confidence | Extractor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| cs.AI, cs.CR | → current | current | arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1 | high | deterministic |
PDFpdf_url1
| Value | Valid from → to | Status | Source | Confidence | Extractor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| https://arxiv.org/pdf/2606.04990 | → current | current | arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1 | high | deterministic |
Primary categoryprimary_category1
| Value | Valid from → to | Status | Source | Confidence | Extractor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| cs.CR | → current | current | arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1 | high | deterministic |
Publishedpublished_at1
| Value | Valid from → to | Status | Source | Confidence | Extractor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Sept 2026 | → current | current | arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1 | high | deterministic |
Claims are temporal and append-only: a new observation closes the previous claim (valid_to) instead of overwriting it. Conflicting claims from different sources are kept side by side and flagged — never averaged. Methodology →
- New paperPaperFrom Agent Traces to Trust: A Survey of Evidence Tracing and Execution Provenance in LLM Agents
New paper: From Agent Traces to Trust: A Survey of Evidence Tracing and Execution Provenance in LLM Agents
arxiv
| Source | Document | Type | Tier | Last observed | Snapshots |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| arXiv (Atom API + RSS) | rss.arxiv.org/rss/cs.AI | feed | T1· Official | 1 h ago | 2 |
Tier 1 = official/primary, 2 = quality secondary, 3 = community, 4 = unverified. Every snapshot is archived; see all sources and the methodology.