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Jun 25, 2026

EU AI Act Article 11 - Annex IV Documentation

In-app help for the AI Compliance > Annex IV documentation admin page.

Overview

The EU AI Act Article 11 requires the provider of a high-risk AI system to draw up technical documentation before the system is placed on the market and to keep it up to date. Annex IV enumerates the nine sections that must be included. Heratio generates one Markdown bundle per AI service through the AI Compliance admin pages.

Enforcement deadline: 2 August 2026. Retention obligation: at least 10 years from the date of last placing on the market.

Usage

Where it lives

  • AI Model Registry: /admin/ai-compliance/models
  • Annex IV Documentation: /admin/ai-compliance/documentation
  • Generated bundles on disk: storage/ai-compliance/annex-iv/

Day-to-day workflow

  1. Keep the registry current. When you deploy a new model version (e.g. switch the LLM from mistral:7b to a successor), open /admin/ai-compliance/models and:
    • Set retired_at on the row for the outgoing model. Do not delete it. Annex IV section 6 requires a full lifecycle history.
    • Click Add model to create a row for the new model. Fill in the intended purpose, training-data summary, known limits, and accuracy metrics.
  2. Generate the bundle. Open /admin/ai-compliance/documentation and click Generate bundle(s). Pick a specific service or leave blank to generate for all services.
  3. Review the output. Open each generated file. Verify the Declaration of Conformity at the top, the lifecycle table in section 6, and the accuracy metrics in section 3. Sign the printed Declaration physically if a regulator requires a wet signature.
  4. Archive on rotation. When the storage volume for storage/ai-compliance/ is rotated, copy the entire annex-iv/ directory to the new volume. Article 11(3) requires regulators to be able to obtain the documents for 10 years.

Command-line equivalent

Operators can drive the same generator from the CLI:

php artisan ai-compliance:annex-iv
php artisan ai-compliance:annex-iv --service=htr
php artisan ai-compliance:annex-iv --out=/tmp/regulator-export

What each bundle contains

Each per-service Markdown file holds, in order:

  1. The full EU Declaration of Conformity (Annex V) with substituted Heratio version, deployment date, and signing party.
  2. The nine Annex IV sections: general description, system elements, monitoring/functioning/control, performance metrics, risk management, lifecycle changes, harmonised standards, conformity declaration cross-reference, and the post-market monitoring plan.
  3. A receipt-chain fingerprint - every bundle write is recorded in ai_inference_log (Article 12), so the bundle on disk and its proof of authorship are tamper-evident.

Configuration

Default signatures and addresses come from config/ahg.php. Adjust the keys below to match your deployment:

Config key Purpose Default
ahg.compliance.signing_party_name Name printed on the EU Declaration Johan Pieterse
ahg.compliance.signing_party_role Role printed on the EU Declaration Provider authorised representative
ahg.compliance.signing_party_email Contact on the EU Declaration johan@theahg.co.za
ahg.compliance.provider_address Provider postal address Plain Sailing Information Systems
ahg.compliance.place_of_issue Place of issue on the EU Declaration Republic of South Africa

References

  • Source: packages/ahg-ai-compliance/
  • Reference doc: docs/reference/ai-compliance-article-11.md
  • Sibling features: /help/ai-compliance-article-12 (Article 12 logging), Article 9 risk register (issue #724)
  • Issue: GH #725