postrecord

Postrecord is a data-management concept used in software systems to capture and store the state of an item after each mutating operation, producing a sequence of post-change records. Unlike traditional pre-change snapshots or delta logs, postrecords emphasize the resulting state of the entity, along with metadata such as timestamp, user identity, and operation type. The approach is related to event sourcing and immutable auditing, but focuses on the post-mutation state rather than the event that caused the change.

In practice, a postrecord system appends an immutable record for every mutation, enabling straightforward reconstruction of the current state by applying the latest postrecord per entity, or by replaying records in order. This can improve auditability and simplify rollback, while potentially incurring higher storage usage due to storing full state at each change instead of only deltas.

Design considerations include schema for postrecords (state payload, metadata), indexing strategies for efficient lookups, and policies for deduplication and privacy. It often pairs with versioning and strong access controls to prevent tampering. Some implementations integrate postrecords with composable storage backends or with event-sourced architectures to provide both state views and history.

Applications span compliance-heavy domains, data lineage, content management, and distributed systems that require clear post-change provenance. Critics note increased storage costs and the need for efficient reconstruction strategies.

See also event sourcing, audit log, versioning.