# Recital 71: Development documentation

> EU AI Act (2024/1689)
> Source: https://en.ai-act.io/recital/development-documentation

Having comprehensible information on how high-risk AI systems have been developed and how they perform throughout their lifetime is essential to enable traceability of those systems, verify compliance with the requirements under this Regulation, as well as monitoring of their operations and post market monitoring. This requires keeping records and the availability of technical documentation, containing information which is necessary to assess the compliance of the AI system with the relevant requirements and facilitate post market monitoring. Such information should include the general characteristics, capabilities and limitations of the system, algorithms, data, training, testing and validation processes used as well as documentation on the relevant risk-management system and drawn in a clear and comprehensive form. The technical documentation should be kept up to date, appropriately throughout the lifetime of the AI system. Furthermore, high-risk AI systems should technically allow for the automatic recording of events, by means of logs, over the duration of the lifetime of the system.

## Related Articles

- [Article 9: Risk management system](https://en.ai-act.io/article/high-risk-ai-systems/requirements-for-high-risk-ai-systems/risk-management-system.md)
- [Article 10: Data and data governance](https://en.ai-act.io/article/high-risk-ai-systems/requirements-for-high-risk-ai-systems/data-and-data-governance.md)
- [Article 11: Technical documentation](https://en.ai-act.io/article/high-risk-ai-systems/requirements-for-high-risk-ai-systems/technical-documentation.md)
- [Article 12: Record-keeping](https://en.ai-act.io/article/high-risk-ai-systems/requirements-for-high-risk-ai-systems/record-keeping.md)
- [Article 18: Documentation keeping](https://en.ai-act.io/article/high-risk-ai-systems/obligations-of-providers-and-deployers-of-high-risk-ai-systems-and-other-parties/documentation-keeping.md)
- [Article 42: Presumption of conformity with certain requirements](https://en.ai-act.io/article/high-risk-ai-systems/standards-conformity-assessment-certificates-registration/presumption-of-conformity-with-certain-requirements.md)