I keep running into the same problem: I’ll do a careful “is this AI-generated?” check for a piece of content (text, sometimes an image), and a week later someone asks why we decided what we decided… and I can’t cleanly reconstruct the steps.
I’m not looking for a perfect courtroom chain-of-custody. I just want something a coworker (or future me) can audit without guessing. Like: what you checked, what you saw, what you ruled out, and what would change your mind.
Right now my “process” is basically scattered notes + a few screenshots + vibes. Not ideal.
so… what’s your minimal documentation standard? Do you keep templates? Store screenshots? Record tool versions / settings? And how do you keep it lightweight enough that people will actually do it?
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I’m a fan of “audit trail, not novel.”
I’d do a one-page checklist with 8–10 boxes and a tiny free-text section. If it takes more than 5 minutes, nobody keeps it up.
Also: always write what evidence was missing. That’s the part I forget later.
Treat it like debugging.
Date/time, artifact ID, the exact question you were answering (“is this image ai generated” vs “is this edited”), and a quick decision memo. Two paragraphs max.
If you can’t reproduce your conclusion from your own notes, it’s not auditable. Harsh but true.
One small thing that helps: write down your assumptions.
Like: “Assuming author had access to source interviews,” or “Assuming this was posted straight from the draft.” Those assumptions quietly steer everything.
And keep the tone humble. Future readers can smell overconfidence a mile away.
I’d separate artifacts from interpretation.
Artifacts: screenshots, metadata dumps, copy of the text you checked (or a content hash), and timestamps.
Interpretation: your reasoning + confidence + what would falsify it.
If your storage supports it, make the artifact folder append-only so stuff doesn’t “accidentally” change.
My minimum field list:
- Claim you’re making (exactly)
- Evidence for / evidence against
- Alternative explanations you considered
- Confidence level + why
- Next step if challenged
Everything else is optional. But those five make it feel “audit-ish” instead of “I had a hunch.”