Governed state
Facts an agent relies on, held as typed, versioned items with their source.
Governed state is the set of facts an agent relies on to act: amounts, statuses, approvals, limits and decisions. Instead of leaving them as loose text in a prompt or memory, Cogna8 records each one as a state item that can be checked, versioned and traced.
State is not memory
| Agent memory | Governed state | |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Help the model recall context | Decide whether an action may run |
| Changes | Overwritten or summarised | New version; old one kept |
| Disagreements | Last write wins, silently | Recorded as a conflict |
| Source | Often lost | Kept with every item |
| Used by the gate | No | Yes |
Immutable by design
State items are never edited in place. When a value changes, the previous item is given a terminal status and a new item is created. The full history is always available, which is what makes decisions reproducible.
Where state comes from
State is recorded through the State API or MCP, or extracted from conversations in the sandbox. Each item keeps its source so you can follow it back.
Last reviewed October 2026Suggest a change