Seven simple steps for log analysis in AI systems

Computer Science > Artificial Intelligence [Submitted on 13 Feb 2026] Seven simple steps for log analysis in AI systems Magda Dubois, Ekin Zorer, Maia Hamin, Joe Skinner, Alexandra Souly, Jerome Wynne, Harry Coppock, Lucas Satos, Sayash Kapoor, Sunischal Dev, Keno Juchems, Kimberly Mai, Timo Flesch, Lennart Luettgau, Charles Teague, Eric Patey, JJ Allaire, Lorenzo Pacchiardi, Jose Hernandez-Orallo, Cozmin Ududec AI systems produce large volumes of logs as they interact with tools and users. Analysing these logs can help understand model capabilities, propensities, and behaviours, or assess whether an evaluation worked as intended. Researchers have started developing methods for log analysis, but a standardised approach is still missing. Here we suggest a pipeline based on current best practices. We illustrate it with concrete code examples in the Inspect Scout library, provide detailed guidance on each step, and highlight common pitfalls. Our framework provides researchers with a foundation for rigorous and reproducible log analysis. Subjects: Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI); Computation and Language (cs.CL); Machine Learning (cs.LG) Cite as: arXiv:2604.09563 [cs.AI]   (or arXiv:2604.09563v1 [cs.AI] for this version)   https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.09563 Focus to learn more Submission history From: Magda Dubois [view email] [v1] Fri, 13 Feb 2026 21:35:45 UTC (1,814 KB) Access Paper: HTML (experimental) view license Current browse context: cs.AI < prev   |   next > new | recent | 2026-04 Change to browse by: cs cs.CL cs.LG References & Citations NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Export BibTeX Citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Demos Related Papers About arXivLabs Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)