# When the action succeeds and the audit write doesn't

DevFeed: [When the action succeeds and the audit write doesn't](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/when-the-action-succeeds-and-the-audit-write-doesn-t-16002.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://workos.com/blog/audit-log-write-reliability>)

Author: WorkOS

Published: 2026-09-04T00:00:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [WorkOS Blog](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/workos-blog.md>)

Topics: [Logging](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/logging.md>), [systems](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/systems.md>), [payload](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/payload.md>)

Tags: [audit](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/audit.md>), [distributed-transaction](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/distributed-transaction.md>), [logging](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/logging.md>), [metric](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/metric.md>), [retry](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/retry.md>)

## AI overview

The article examines why audit logs can become unreliable when an application performs an action and writes its audit record as separate operations. It describes silent gaps, phantom events, and duplicate events caused by failures, ordering, and retries, emphasizing that audit records must remain trustworthy evidence.

## Source excerpt

When the action succeeds and the log write fails, you get a gap that nothing alerts on. Here is the write path that closes it.