🤖 AI Summary
This work addresses the fragmentation of governance evidence in automated decision systems caused by heterogeneous log formats by proposing the Decision Event Schema (DES)—a unified tracing specification based on JSON Schema. DES uniquely integrates four infrastructure layers: machine learning inference, rule evaluation, cross-system coupling, and governance metadata. It introduces degradation-resistant field design and a three-tier evidence strategy—lightweight, sampled, and complete—to accommodate varying risk profiles and throughput requirements. Among over 25 existing logging formats, DES is the only one that comprehensively covers all four layers. Empirical validation demonstrates its compatibility with high-throughput production environments, offering practitioners a readily adoptable or extensible reference standard and enabling regulators to map compliance requirements to minimal evidence levels.
📝 Abstract
Automated decision systems produce operational data across multiple infrastructure layers, yet no single logging format captures the complete governance-relevant record of how a decision was reached. Regulatory frameworks prescribe what must be recorded without specifying a data model for how to record it -- a gap this paper terms the Fragmented Trace Problem. Following a design science methodology, the paper presents the Decision Event Schema (DES), a JSON Schema specification that bridges four infrastructure layers -- ML inference, rule/policy evaluation, cross-system coupling, and governance metadata -- within a single per-decision event structure. The schema employs degradation-aware field design: each of six top-level field groups maps to a governance evidence property and the degradation type it must resist. DES defines ten required root-level fields and introduces a tiered evidence strategy (lightweight, sampled, full) that enables organizations to match evidence completeness to decision risk and throughput. A mechanism feasibility analysis demonstrates compatibility with the highest-throughput integrity mechanisms at production-scale decision rates. Evaluation against 25+ existing formats confirms that DES is the only specification covering all four layers simultaneously. The schema offers practitioners a reference adoptable directly or adaptable through namespace extensions, and regulators a mapping from requirements to minimum evidence tiers.