v2.2.0

DX, completeness and observability.

• Testing API: AuditLog::fake() with recording assertions
• Capture completeness: fail-open audit failures are now visible (Stats banner + nav badge)
• OTel bridge: incoming W3C traceparent captured as trace_id, with an "Open distributed trace" link to your APM
• Token/client attribution (Sanctum/Passport)
• HasAuditTrail trait for per-model access
• Legal holds: exempt a subject from retention
• Postman export of the read API

v2.1.0

Span-based causation tree.

• Every change records the span of its unit of work and the span that caused it (span_id / parent_span_id), propagated across the queue.
• The change chain is now drawn as a top-down, collapsible, pannable causation tree.

v2.0.2

Documentation release on top of v2.0.1.

• Restructured the README to lead with the provenance value (actor, origin, correlation) and trimmed it from 376 to about 240 lines.
• Added a table of contents, a provenance-chain diagram, a production-incident example, a zero-model-setup section and a short Yammi vs Spatie comparison.
• Moved the deep feature documentation into docs/ (provenance, governance, forensics, operations, compliance, analytics-and-dashboard, configuration) and linked it.
• Renamed Enterprise to Advanced features and fixed the fail-open wording.

No code or behavior changes since v2.0.0.

v2.0.1

Patch release on top of v2.0.0.

• Docs: removed em dashes from the README (style only); use commas or a short hyphen.

No code or behavior changes since v2.0.0.

v2.0.0

Application-level provenance and change history for queue-heavy, distributed Laravel apps. Every change is recorded with the real actor, the origin that survives the queue, and a correlation chain back to the one action that caused it — with a verifiable, tamper-evident history on top.

Provenance (the core)

• Multi-level actor attribution: user / job / command / scheduler / system, resolved by an extensible provider chain.
• Origin that survives the queue: a job dispatched by a user keeps that user, serialized into the payload across real workers — proven by a database-worker test.
• Correlation id + cross-model trace: one id per request / command / job cascade, drawn as a ladder indented by job-nesting depth.
• Impersonation-aware: "Jane Doe (impersonated by Support Admin)" — login-as is attributed to both, not just the victim.
• Foreign-key label snapshots ("John Doe", not user_id: 5), captured at event time and surviving row deletion.

Forensics and compliance

• Time machine: reconstruct the exact state a record had at any past date, read-only.
• Tamper evidence: SHA-256 hash chain + audit-log:verify; pruning keeps a chain anchor so verification stays strict.
• Signed integrity digests (CloudTrail-style): detect deletion of a whole signed segment or the entire table.
• GDPR subject reports in one command (audit-log:subject-report, NDJSON / HTML).
• Recursive secret redaction (passwords, tokens, api keys, including nested JSON) before values reach the database.
• Access logging (who viewed a record) and change reason (withReason, covered by the hash chain).

Operations

• Anomaly detection: change burst, mass delete, off-hours, cascade weight (write-amplification), plus detection-as-code custom rules; alerts to Slack, signed webhook or mail, on demand or on a cron.
• SIEM streaming to Splunk / Datadog / Elastic / generic HTTP — off the request path, queued, fail-soft.
• Native multi-tenancy: tenant stamped at capture (survives the queue), every read auto-scoped.
• Retention with archive-before-delete to any disk (S3 included), and an optional dedicated database connection with a transfer-data command.

Governance

• AuditPolicy per model: ignore() noisy fields, capture when() a condition holds, sample() a fraction of high-churn models.
• Sampling decided per correlation, so one record's history within a unit of work is kept or dropped together — never left with holes.
• event_version schema contract on every record (and in the API / SIEM payloads) so consumers can branch on the layout.
• Fluent query DSL (AuditLog::query()->field('status')->from('pending')->to('paid')->get()) over the same filter path as the array API.

Analytics and performance

• Indexed changed-keys table: field-level searches seek an index instead of scanning the JSON of every row; audit-log:backfill-changed-keys covers existing rows (chunked, resumable).
• Correlation analytics: "Top cascades" ranks the heaviest root actions (writes / models / depth), each linking to its trace.
• Change hotspots: most-changed models and most-changed fields, scoped to the current filters.
• Deliberate write path: one record insert plus one batched changed-key insert; capture is fail-open and never blocks the host.

Dashboard and developer experience

• Optional dashboard (audit-log:ui enable): filters, value-transition search, statistics with heatmap, pagination, anomalies, trace, time machine — vendored assets, no CDN.
• In-app documentation page covering every feature, plus a live facade Playground.
• Facades for everything the dashboard shows, and an opt-in JSON API for your own admin panels.

Non-goals (permanent boundaries)

No event sourcing or state replay, no backpressure engine, no in-package search engine, no distributed observability platform, no query profiler. Each would force the audit log to become a source of truth or a real-time system, breaking the invariant that makes it safe to install: capture is fail-closed, off your write path, additive, and never changes your data.

Requirements

PHP 8.1 / 8.2 / 8.3, Laravel 9–13. CI: Pint, PHPStan level 8, the unit suite across the PHP matrix, and a 90%+ line-coverage gate.

v1.0.0

First stable release.

• Automatic capture of Eloquent create / update / delete / restore with field-level diffs and recursive secret redaction
• Actor attribution (user / job / command / scheduler / system) with queue-surviving origin and impersonation awareness
• Correlation tracing across request -> job -> job cascades with a trace UI
• Time machine, record view, noise diagnostics, statistics with a 30-day heatmap
• Optional hash-chain integrity with audit-log:verify
• GDPR tooling: retention (default 180 days), archive to NDJSON, subject access reports, CSV/JSON export
• Anomaly detection (change bursts, mass deletes, off-hours) with Slack / signed webhook / mail alerts
• Native multi-tenancy via a TenantResolver contract
• Optional dashboard (audit-log:ui enable), facades for every screen, opt-in JSON API, settings UI with built-in docs
• PHP 8.1-8.3, Laravel 9-13