The Change Log: Boring, Until It Saves You

Nobody gets excited about a change log. It's the most boring document in compliance — a list of what changed, when, and who approved it. Until the day it saves you.

"When did the model start rejecting these applications?" "Was that before or after the data update?" "Who approved the new prompt?" These are the questions that arrive with a complaint, an auditor, or a lawyer. The change log is the only honest answer.

In my federal grants compliance days, every budget amendment had a paper trail — what changed, why, who signed. Nobody celebrated the paperwork. But when questions came, the answers were already written. AI changes deserve the same respect.

Keep it ruthlessly simple. One line per change: date, what changed, who approved it. A model update, a new dataset, a prompt rewrite, a threshold tweak — if it affects decisions, it goes in the log.

Don't automate chaos. Every undocumented change is a mystery you're planting for your future self. The log is boring the way a seatbelt is boring — you only appreciate it when things go wrong.

I explain frameworks; I don't give legal counsel.