Audit Trail

The problem

You need a complete record of who changed what, when, and why — from first draft to final version.

The solution

track: enables revision tracking. The CLI records changes as revision: blocks below the history: boundary.

title: Service Agreement v2.1
meta: | type: contract | track: true

section: Terms
text: Payment within 30 days of invoice.

section: Signatures
approve: Legal review | by: Sarah Chen | role: General Counsel | at: 2026-03-20
sign: Ahmed Al-Rashid | role: CEO | at: 2026-03-22 | hash: sha256:a1b2c3d4
freeze: | status: locked | at: 2026-03-22T15:00:00Z | hash: sha256:f9a0b1c2

track: | by: legal@acme.co

history:
revision: | version: 1.0 | at: 2026-03-01 | by: Ahmed | change: Initial draft
revision: | version: 1.1 | at: 2026-03-05 | by: Sarah | change: Legal review — clause 4.2 updated | section: Payment | was: Net 60 | now: Net 30
revision: | version: 1.2 | at: 2026-03-15 | by: Ahmed | change: Incorporated finance feedback
revision: | version: 2.0 | at: 2026-03-20 | by: Sarah | change: Final legal review
revision: | version: 2.1 | at: 2026-03-22 | by: Ahmed | change: Sealed

The history boundary

The history: keyword separates the document from its history. Everything above is the document content. Everything below is metadata about the document's evolution.

[document content]
track: | by: owner@example.com

history:
[revision blocks]

The history boundary:

• Never included in content hashes
• Never rendered in HTML output
• Present in the raw .it file for tools and auditors

Viewing history

CLI

intenttext history contract.it

Version  Date        Author  Change
1.0      2026-03-01  Ahmed   Initial draft
1.1      2026-03-05  Sarah   Legal review — clause 4.2 updated
1.2      2026-03-15  Ahmed   Incorporated finance feedback
2.0      2026-03-20  Sarah   Final legal review
2.1      2026-03-22  Ahmed   Sealed

Filtered history

# By author
intenttext history contract.it --by "Sarah"

# By section
intenttext history contract.it --section "Payment"

# As JSON — for downstream processing
intenttext history contract.it --json

JSON output

[
  {
    "version": "1.1",
    "at": "2026-03-05",
    "by": "Sarah",
    "change": "Legal review — clause 4.2 updated",
    "section": "Payment",
    "was": "Net 60",
    "now": "Net 30"
  }
]

Revision metadata

Each revision: block can track:

Property	Description
version:	Version identifier
at:	Timestamp
by:	Author
change:	Description of the change
section:	Which section changed
id:	Block identifier
block:	Block type that changed
was:	Previous value
now:	New value

Revisions vs amendments

	revision:	amendment:
Where	Below the history: boundary	After freeze:, above history:
When	During drafting, before freeze	After the document is sealed
Written by	The CLI (auto-generated)	The intenttext amend command
Purpose	Draft history	Formal post-seal changes
Affects seal	No — below the boundary	No — after freeze:

Use revision: to track how the document was built. Use amendment: to track how it was changed after signing.

Complete audit trail

For a fully auditable document:

1. track: — enables tracking
2. approve: — records who reviewed
3. sign: — integrity hash seals
4. freeze: — seals the content
5. amendment: — formal post-seal changes
6. revision: — draft history below history:

# Full picture
intenttext verify contract.it   # seal + amendments
intenttext history contract.it  # revision history

Next steps

• Approval Workflow — the approve → sign → freeze chain
• Amending Frozen Documents — post-seal amendments
• Sealing Contracts — the seal command