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Jun 25, 2026

Heratio Help Center article. Category: Research / Project.

Overview

The Decision Log is the per-project audit trail of your thinking - the recorded memory of every loop in a research project. It records WHY you did things, not just what happened. Where the system activity log answers "what changed and when", the Decision Log answers "why did you decide that".

It exists to make going backwards safe and recorded rather than silently erased, to feed the limitations section of your write-up, and to answer an examiner's "why did you exclude X?" with receipts.

What to record

Each entry has a type, a one-line summary, and (recommended) a reason:

  • Scope change - a date and reason for narrowing or widening the project's scope.
  • Exclusion - a source, case, or dataset you left out, and why.
  • Hypothesis revision - a hypothesis you rejected or revised.
  • Method pivot - a change in methodology.
  • Question reformulation - a reworded or refocused research question.
  • Supervisor instruction - an instruction from a supervisor that you acted on.
  • Other - anything else worth recording.

The list of decision types is managed in the Dropdown Manager (taxonomy decision_type), so an institution can rename or extend it.

Using the log

  • Open a project, then go to its Decision Log.
  • Click Record a decision, choose a type, write a short summary, and add your reasoning. Optionally note a related reference (e.g. the excluded source id and label), who decided, and when.
  • The timeline shows newest first, with a coloured type badge, the summary, the reason, and who/when.
  • Filter by type using the chips at the top; each chip shows a count.
  • Owners, project collaborators, and admins can view; owners, editor-collaborators, and admins can add, edit, and delete entries.

Why it matters

A well-kept Decision Log turns "I think we dropped that early on" into a dated, reasoned entry. It is the difference between a defensible methodology chapter and a reconstruction from memory.

Empty state

A new project's log shows: "No decisions recorded yet - the log is the memory of every loop." Record your first scope change, exclusion, hypothesis revision, or method pivot to start the trail.