Drift Signal Example

Scenario

An autonomous workflow prepares weekly operational summaries. It uses recent tickets, deployment notes, and incident records.

Expected Behaviour

The summary should reflect the current week, include material exceptions, and identify unresolved operational risk.

Drift Signal

For three weeks, the workflow marks summaries as complete while omitting open incidents that were tagged after the initial retrieval step.

Interpretation

The workflow has not fully failed. It still produces a document. The drift is in coverage and freshness. The system is treating an early context snapshot as if it remains complete.

Coherence Risk

The organisation may believe unresolved risk has been reviewed when it has not. The output remains plausible, which makes the drift harder to detect.

Possible Response

• Add a freshness check before final summary generation.
• Record the retrieval window in the audit trail.
• Flag unresolved incidents added after the first retrieval.
• Hold publication if unresolved high-priority incidents were not evaluated.