Logs kept exactly as long
as the rules say, and proven
Most teams have a written log retention policy and a logging setup that does not actually enforce it, which means logs either pile up far past when they should be deleted, a liability if anything is ever subpoenaed, or expire too early, a gap if a compliance review asks for a record that no longer exists. We build an agent that enforces the real policy across every log source and keeps proof that it did.
The process today
Most teams have a written retention policy somewhere, a document stating that security logs are kept for a year, access logs for ninety days, application logs for thirty, and a logging setup that was configured once and has never been checked against that policy since. In practice, that usually means logs accumulate indefinitely because nobody set up automatic deletion, which creates liability: data kept far longer than policy requires is data that can be subpoenaed, breached, or scrutinized in a way shorter retention would have avoided.
The second cost runs the other way too: a retention window set too aggressively, or a log source quietly misconfigured to retain less than it should, can mean a compliance review or an actual investigation asks for a record that no longer exists, and “we deleted it on schedule” is a much better answer than “we do not actually know what our retention setup does.”
The third is that log sources themselves go quiet sometimes, a logging agent that stops forwarding data, a service that gets redeployed without its logging configuration carried over, and that gap is invisible until someone specifically needs the missing data, at which point it is too late to recover.
What the agent does
The agent enforces your retention policy as an active, running process rather than a document: each log type, security events, access logs, application logs, follows its own defined retention window, and logs are automatically and verifiably deleted once that window expires, with the deletion itself recorded as an auditable event. Where a legal hold applies, because of litigation, an investigation, or a regulatory request, the specific log set in scope is frozen from deletion as a hard rule until the hold is explicitly lifted by an authorized person.
The agent also watches for gaps: a log source that should be capturing data but has gone quiet, a required log type that is missing entirely from a newly deployed service. Both get flagged immediately rather than discovered only when the missing data is actually needed. A dated compliance report, generated on whatever cadence your audits require, documents exactly what was retained, for how long, and what was deleted and when, ready to hand over without reconstructing it under time pressure. Typical integrations: your log management platform, cloud-native logging services, or a self-hosted log aggregator, with alerts to Slack or email.
What stays with humans
Setting the actual retention window per log type, based on the specific regulations that apply to your business and jurisdiction, is a legal or compliance decision, never something the agent infers on its own. Placing or lifting a legal hold is always a decision made by an authorized person, logged with who made the call and why. Deciding how to respond to a detected logging gap, whether it needs an immediate fix or can wait for the next deployment cycle, is a team decision informed by the alert.
Guards
Every retention action, deletion, hold, exception, is logged as its own event with a timestamp and the policy rule that triggered it, building a complete, auditable history. Legal holds are enforced as a hard rule that automatic deletion cannot override under any circumstance. A kill switch pauses automatic deletion fleet-wide in an emergency, such as a newly discovered legal matter affecting multiple log types, without losing anything already retained.
Price and timeline
| Option | Price | What it covers | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single automation | from $800 | Core log sources, per-type retention enforcement, gap detection | 1 to 2 weeks |
| Department package | from $2,200 | Log retention compliance plus GDPR data request handling and access reviews | 2 to 4 weeks |
Running cost is usually $10 to $35 a month in model and log-platform API usage depending on log volume.
Related
This pairs well with GDPR data request handling since both are part of the same regulatory data governance, and with access reviews and offboarding for the access-log side of the same audit trail. For the general compliance checklist side, see the existing compliance checklists automation. Full package details are on the AI agents service page and the automation-everything overview; for work where log and data handling discipline mattered directly, see the secure messenger case study and the visa center AI support bots case study.
Not sure your actual logging setup matches your written retention policy? Get in touch and we will check the gap.
Tired of doing this by hand? We can take the whole routine off your team, not just this step: Routine takeover, from $400 →
FAQ
How much does log retention compliance automation cost?
From $800 covering your core log sources, live in 1 to 2 weeks. A larger footprint across multiple systems and jurisdictions usually runs $1,500 to $2,500.
What happens if we need logs for an investigation that are past their retention window?
A legal hold exception freezes a specific log set from deletion the moment it is flagged, which is why gap detection and hold management are built in specifically, rather than relying on someone remembering to pause deletion manually.
Does this decide what our retention policy should be?
No, your legal or compliance team sets the retention window per log type based on the regulations that apply to your business; the agent enforces whatever policy you define and flags where current practice does not match it.
What if a log source stops working and we do not notice?
The agent specifically watches for a log source going quiet, which is one of the most common and least noticed compliance gaps, and alerts immediately rather than only discovering it when someone needs a log that was never captured.
Which log sources does this cover?
Application logs, access and authentication logs, security event logs, and infrastructure logs, wherever they are stored, a log management platform, cloud-native logging, or a self-hosted log aggregator.