AI Governance Engineer
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Explanation record

By Updated

The evidence artefact for one explained decision: model version, explanation method and version, baseline, reason codes, counterfactual, template, audience and delivery, written at decision time so the explanation can be reproduced when a person invokes a right to explanation 1.

Developed in
ch. 16, Explanation artefacts as evidence records
ch. 05, Pattern: Explanation Artefact
Chapters
ch. 05, Patterns · ch. 16, Fairness & XAI
Source
1 numbered reference, listed below

Where it is used

4 chapters of the Body of Knowledge use the term. Each link opens the first section that does.

Patterns that use this term

One pattern page uses the term.

  • Reason code

    A stable, human-readable statement of a principal factor behind an adverse decision, mapped from the factors the model actually scored and versioned with the…

  • Right to explanation (AI Act Art. 86)

    The right of a person affected by a deployer's decision based on an Annex III high-risk system's output, with legal or similarly significant adverse effects…

Sources

  1. [1] Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (AI Act), consolidated text as amended by Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 (Digital Omnibus on AI, in force 27 Jul 2026; definitions in Art. 3, incl. 3(1), 3(3) to 3(14), 3(14b), 3(20), 3(22), 3(23), 3(29) to 3(32), 3(49), 3(55) to 3(57), 3(60), 3(61), 3(63), 3(68); Arts. 4, 5, 6 (incl. 6(3) third subparagraph, profiling), 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 22 to 27 (incl. 26(11)), 40, 41, 43, 47, 48, 50, 53 (incl. 53(1)(c)), 55, 57, 60, 72, 73, 86; Annexes I, III, IV). Publications Office of the EU (EUR-Lex). 2026-07-27. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1689/2026-07-27/eng (verified: primary)

Definitions of legal terms paraphrase the cited text, which governs. Dated statements are as of .

Cite this term

García Aibar, J. (2026). Explanation record. In AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis & Body of Knowledge (v0.5.0), Glossary. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22956197. https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/explanation-record. CC BY 4.0

BibTeX

@misc{aige2026explanationrecord,
  author  = {Jorge García Aibar},
  title   = {{Explanation record}},
  note    = {Glossary, AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis \& Body of Knowledge, version 0.5.0},
  year    = {2026},
  doi     = {10.5281/zenodo.22956197},
  url     = {https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/explanation-record}
}