Decision Trace
A decision trace is an inferred representation of how a generative system evaluates competing content configurations and arrives at a confidence judgment. Decision traces are not stored artifacts or telemetry logs—they are reconstructed through repetition, revealing how the same structural conditions reliably produce the same outcomes across queries and time.
When the same structural conditions reliably produce the same outcome across queries and time, the system is revealing its judgment indirectly. That revealed judgment is the decision trace. Decision traces explain why certain failures persist despite surface changes, and why certain fragments become default references across varied contexts.
For a complete explanation of how decision traces work in generative search, see Decision Traces in Generative Search.