Structured State Offloading

Version: 1.0.0
Last updated: 2026-07-16

Purpose

Move durable task state from conversation prose into typed, authoritative application storage.

Why

Conversation summaries are lossy model outputs. State that affects permissions, workflow, money, or completion must be validated and stored outside the model with explicit ownership and versioning.

How

{
  "task_id": "T-204",
  "version": 7,
  "goal": "reconcile July invoices",
  "completed_step_ids": ["load-ledger"],
  "open_questions": ["missing exchange rate"],
  "evidence_ids": ["ledger-2026-07"],
  "next_allowed_actions": ["fetch-rate", "request-review"]
}

1. Define a schema and authoritative fields.
2. Let the model propose state changes.
3. Validate transitions, permissions, and preconditions in code.
4. Use optimistic concurrency or transactions.
5. Rehydrate only task-relevant fields with provenance.
6. Expire or archive state by retention policy.

When

Use for long-running agents, resumable workflows, multi-turn tasks, and handoffs.

Tradeoffs

Benefit	Cost
Durable, inspectable state	Schema and migration work
Reliable resume	Concurrency handling
Smaller prompts	Retrieval orchestration

Anti-Patterns

• Hidden chain-of-thought as persistent state.
• Free-form summaries as the source of truth.
• Model-authored completion flags without verification.
• Shared state without tenant keys or versions.

Enterprise Considerations

Encrypt state, enforce tenant isolation, maintain transition audit logs, classify fields, support deletion and legal holds, and prohibit secrets in model-written notes.

Checklist

• Durable state has a typed schema
• Transitions are authorized and validated
• Concurrency is controlled
• Provenance and version are retained
• Retention and deletion are enforced

Changelog

• 1.0.0 (2026-07-16): Initial external state management standard.