# Commitment Tracking

> Extract the agent's stated intents into a ledger with open/followed-through/expired status — make the gap between promise and follow-through visible before it erodes trust.

- **Category**: Agentic AI
- **Subcategory**: Verification & Reflection
- **Canonical URL**: https://designpattern.fyi/patterns/commitment_tracking/

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## Description
**Intent**: Turn the agent's in-turn promises into trackable, auditable commitments.

**Context**: Your conversational agent routinely says things like "let me pull the latest figures" or "I'll come back to this once the build finishes" — and then the moment passes. Without external tracking, the agent has no signal that it promised something and no way to notice when the promise expired.

**Solution**: After each agent turn, run a cheap-tier extraction pass that scans for stated intents and writes each as a Commitment record into an append-only ledger. Each record: intent statement, turn raised, optional deadline or condition, status (open). Two moves: `mark_followed_through(id, evidence)` flips status when the action happened; `mark_expired(id)` closes overdue records. Run `check_expirations` periodically. Surface open commitments in the agent's working context.


## Use Cases
- The agent makes frequent in-turn promises the user expects to be honoured.
- A cheap-tier model is available for the extraction pass.
- Follow-through gaps have been observed and are eroding user trust.





## Trade-offs


### Advantages

- The gap between stated intent and action becomes auditable, not invisible.

- Cheap-tier extraction avoids loading the main model with bookkeeping.

- Periodic expiration sweeps keep the ledger bounded and surface drift automatically.




### Considerations & Drawbacks

- Extraction noise: figurative or rhetorical intents may get logged as real commitments.

- An overzealous ledger makes the agent feel chased by its own off-hand remarks.

- Mark-followed-through depends on the agent's self-reporting; pair with external verification for high-stakes commitments.







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**Reference**: [Original Source](https://www.agentpatternscatalog.org/patterns/commitment-tracking/)