Atested sits in front of governed AI operations. It evaluates the action before it proceeds, records the decision in a signed immutable chain, and makes the boundary between governed and ungoverned activity visible to the operator.
The core flow is simple. An AI tool routes an action through Atested. Atested evaluates it against active policy. If the action satisfies the policy, it proceeds and the decision is recorded. If it does not, the action is denied and that denial is recorded too.
{
"tool": "fs_write",
"capability_class": "FS_WRITE",
"policy_decision": "ALLOW",
"timestamp_utc": "2026-03-30T13:12:00Z",
"operator_intent": "update README",
"organization_id": "acme-engineering",
"record_hash": "sha256:0a1b2c3d4e5f...",
"prev_record_hash": "sha256:f0e1d2c3b4a5...",
"signature": "ed25519:8f9c2ab1..."
}
Atested does not just log actions after the fact. It evaluates governed actions before they proceed. ALLOW means the action met the active policy with the required proof, scope, or constraints. DENY means it did not, and the record shows what was missing.
A coding agent writes inside an approved project path using an allowed tool and the required execution context. An agent sends a message through an approved channel with the expected recipient scope and supporting context.
An agent tries to edit files outside the approved workspace, touch production configuration without authority, or assert that tests passed without sufficient evidence to support the claim.
Atested governs every action that flows through it. It cannot force every action to flow through it, because AI tools also have native capabilities that operate outside any governance layer. That is a structural reality in open environments.
What Atested does is make that boundary visible and measurable. Governed operations produce full signed records. Ungoverned native operations can still be observed and counted through action hooks, so operators can see how much of their AI activity is actually under governance.
{
"governed_operations": 1842,
"observed_native_operations": 716,
"transparency_ratio": "72%",
"observation_mode": "hook-reported",
"manager_view": "governed vs observed"
}
Some governed code cannot produce the evidence Atested requires because it is opaque to inspection. When that code is mission-essential, an operator can grant a scoped approval pinned to the artifact hash, deployment context, and active policy version.
Change the approved artifact and the approval expires. Granting and revoking approvals are themselves recorded in the governance chain, so exceptions stay visible and auditable.
Atested is not limited to preserving evidence. It can stop many unsupported or insufficiently evidenced actions before they become operational events.
The Atested Dashboard gives operators a live view of governance activity, decisions, approvals, audit results, and system health — all backed by the same signed chain the governance engine produces.
Without a governance layer, AI operations often become reconstruction work after something goes wrong. With Atested, many unsupported actions can be denied before they land, and the resulting record gives operators and managers a usable account of what happened instead of a black box and a pile of logs.