mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

AgentTrails: Towards Trust and Reuse for Agentic Tasks

arXiv 2607.18816 ↗First posted 21 Jul 2026cs.DB cs.AIcited by 2

On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Software engineering coding agents

Abstract (arXiv)

LLM-powered agents increasingly tackle complex tasks by invoking tools, querying databases, executing code, and manipulating intermediate artifacts. These agents follow trajectories that are typically stored as chronological logs, obscuring the underlying dataflow -- the dependencies between their actions and the artifacts they create and manipulate. This limits developers' ability to understand the agents' trails, compare executions, debug failures, and re-use the computations. We present AgentTrails, a prototype system for agent provenance and sensemaking. AgentTrails converts raw trajectories into structured provenance graphs, where tool calls are modeled as computational actions and inputs and outputs as data artifacts. The system supports the comparison of executions by placing multiple provenance graphs on a shared canvas and constructing a joined quotient graph that aligns recurring tools, artifacts, and dependency structures across trajectories. On top of this representation, AgentTrails supports pattern extraction, downstream analysis, and skill abstraction. We demonstrate AgentTrails on real-world agent trajectories, showing that it reveals hidden dependencies, aligns divergent executions, and surfaces recurring tool-use patterns beyond chronological logs.

Key facts. Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Software engineering coding agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 15 of its 24 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 21 Jul 2026.

Builds on

15 of 24 references.

Closest ancestors · 4

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025Process-Centric Analysis of Agentic Software Systems2 Dec
  2. 2025AgenTracer: Who Is Inducing Failure in the LLM Agentic Systems?3 Sep
  3. 2025TRAIL: Trace Reasoning and Agentic Issue Localization13 May
  4. 2025SeaView: Software Engineering Agent Visual Interface for Enhanced Workflow11 Apr

Other references · 11

  1. 2022ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Modelscited by 8,695
  2. 2023Reflexion: Language Agents with Verbal Reinforcement Learningcited by 4,276
  3. 2024τ-bench: A Benchmark for Tool-Agent-User Interaction in Real-World Domainscited by 1,402
  4. 2023ExpeL: LLM Agents Are Experiential Learnerscited by 876
  5. 2025Reasoning Models Don't Always Say What They Thinkcited by 415
  6. 2026Trace2Skill: Distill Trajectory-Local Lessons into Transferable Agent Skillscited by 187
  7. 2025From AI for Science to Agentic Science: A Survey on Autonomous Scientific Discoverycited by 77
  8. 2025Understanding and Mitigating Numerical Sources of Nondeterminism in LLM Inferencecited by 53
  9. 2025PROV-AGENT: Unified Provenance for Tracking AI Agent Interactions in Agentic Workflowscited by 31
  10. 2020PipelineProfiler: A Visual Analytics Tool for the Exploration of AutoML Pipelinescited by 19
  11. 2026SciAgentGym: Benchmarking Multi-Step Scientific Tool-use in LLM Agentscited by 15

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 2.

2 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026From Agent Traces to Trust: A Survey of Evidence Tracing and Execution Provenance in LLM Agents
  2. 2026SkillTrace: Multi-Trace Provenance Auditing for LLM-Agent Skill Reuse
  3. 2026MAP-Graph: Provenance-Aware Shared Memory for Multi-Agent Workflows
  4. 2026SKILLFOUNDRY: Building Self-Evolving Agent Skill Libraries from Heterogeneous Scientific Resources
  5. 2026SkillsVote: Lifecycle Governance of Agent Skills from Collection, Recommendation to Evolution
  6. 2026Execution-First Synthetic Tool-Use Trace Generation for LLM Agents
  7. 2026Context-Fractured Decomposition Attacks on Tool-Using LLM Agents: Exploiting Artifact Provenance Gaps
  8. 2025AgentCompass: Towards Reliable Evaluation of Agentic Workflows in Production