Keep the receipts
Hint-Logs
A hint-log is one short, structured entry that captures a meaningful AI interaction — and proves a human, not the machine, made the final call.
Hint-logs are the small-scale, individual version of what the AiGovOps Foundation’s Beacon tool does for enterprises — they’re the receipts side of “keep the receipts.”
They’re the “policy as code” idea, scaled down for individuals. A hint-log is how a teacher proves to a parent that AI didn’t grade their kid’s IEP — a human did. How a small-business owner shows an auditor they reviewed the AI’s draft before it went out. How a community leader proves a campaign claim came from a verified source, not an AI hallucination.
The five fields of a hint-log
Five fields. Thirty seconds. The discipline is in writing the catch and the human call honestly.
The hint
The prompt or question you actually asked the AI.
Example
“Draft a parent-friendly summary of Maya’s reading-goal progress for the IEP meeting, 6th-grade level.”
The answer
A short summary of what the AI gave you back.
Example
Produced a 3-paragraph summary with 4 proposed goals and a fluency target of 120 WPM.
The catch
What the AI got wrong, missed, or made up. Be specific.
Example
Invented a ‘120 WPM’ benchmark that isn’t in our assessment data, and omitted the accommodation Maya already has.
The human call
What YOU decided, edited, or did differently. This is the proof a person stayed in charge.
Example
Deleted the fabricated WPM figure, pulled the real number from the running record (98 WPM), and re-added the extended-time accommodation.
The receipt
A link to the source chat, the doc, the email — wherever the artifact lives.
Example
Link to the saved chat + the final IEP draft in the shared Drive folder, dated and initialed.
Three worked examples
A Teacher’s hint-log
| The hint | Summarize Maya’s reading running-records into 3 IEP goal options at a 6th-grade level. |
| The answer | Gave 3 goals plus a fluency target of 120 WPM and a tidy parent-facing paragraph. |
| The catch | The 120 WPM target was invented — not from our data — and it dropped her extended-time accommodation. |
| The human call | Replaced with the real 98 WPM from the running record, restored the accommodation, rewrote one goal in plainer language. |
| The receipt | Chat link + final IEP draft v3 in the SpEd Drive folder, initialed JT, 5/14. |
A SMB owner’s hint-log
| The hint | Write a refund-policy section for our website based on these notes and WA consumer law. |
| The answer | Produced a clean policy citing a ‘30-day statutory refund window.’ |
| The catch | Washington has no blanket 30-day statutory refund right — that was a hallucinated legal claim. |
| The human call | Removed the false legal claim, reframed it as our voluntary 30-day policy, ran the final by our attorney. |
| The receipt | Perplexity search link to the WA AG page + the attorney’s approval email, saved 6/2. |
A Community leader’s hint-log
| The hint | Draft talking points claiming our river-cleanup removed ‘X tons’ of trash this year. |
| The answer | Filled in ‘12 tons’ and wrote a confident press paragraph around it. |
| The catch | The 12-ton figure was AI-guessed — our logs showed 4.6 tons; the claim would have been false in public. |
| The human call | Swapped in the verified 4.6 tons from our volunteer logs and linked the logbook in the press kit. |
| The receipt | Link to the volunteer log spreadsheet + the AI chat, attached to the board minutes, 6/9. |
A blank template — copy & paste
## Hint-Log — [date] — [your initials] **1. The hint:** What did you ask the AI? Paste or paraphrase the prompt. **2. The answer:** What did the AI give back? One- or two-sentence summary. **3. The catch:** What did it get wrong, miss, or make up? **4. The human call:** What did YOU decide, edit, verify, or do differently? **5. The receipt:** Link to the chat / doc / email where the artifact lives.
Download the Hint-Log spec
The full spec, five fields, five worked examples, and the Beacon connection — copy-paste ready Markdown.
When you outgrow the notebook
From a personal hint-log to Beacon
A hint-log is something you keep by hand, for the AI moments that matter. When you outgrow a personal hint-log, Beacon does this automatically at the enterprise scale — capturing the hint, the answer, the catch, the human call, and the receipt across an entire organization, as policy enforced in code rather than goodwill.