Execution Verification is a security approach for autonomous systems that records what actually ran, not just what was requested. It aims to create a verifiable execution history for agent actions such as API calls, file changes, job submissions, and other tool use. In practice, this can rely on signed logs, chained records, or other tamper-evident evidence so defenders can reconstruct the sequence of actions after the fact.
This matters because once software can act on its own, the main risk is no longer only bad output, but unsafe action. Execution Verification can support incident response, compliance, and audit by showing action provenance and helping detect tampering, replay, or unauthorized tool use. It is useful in defense, but it is not a substitute for least privilege, approval workflows, sandboxing, or strong key management. If the verification path is weak, attackers can still alter records or abuse the agent before the log is checked.