> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://aspex.mintlify.site/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Observed vs inferred

> How aspex trace labels what it can show, what it infers, and what it cannot know.

`aspex trace` reads what your clients log. It never captures payloads and never sits in the request path, so every conclusion carries one of four labels.

| Label            | Meaning                                                                | Example                                                                               |
| ---------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **OBSERVED**     | The event is in the log. A fact about the log.                         | `filesystem.read_file(~/.aws/credentials)` at 14:02:11                                |
| **INFERRED**     | A relationship between observed events, drawn from order and timing.   | "these two calls are 12s apart in the same session"                                   |
| **POSSIBLE**     | A consequence the observed events would allow but the log cannot show. | "the file's contents could have left in the outbound call; payloads are not captured" |
| **NOT OBSERVED** | Explicitly, what Aspex cannot show.                                    | "no evidence the response was used"                                                   |

## Sequence is never causality

A kill chain is a set of OBSERVED steps whose link is INFERRED and whose harm is POSSIBLE. Aspex says so in the output, every time. Provenance (which ingested content preceded a suspicious call) carries a timed confidence:

| Distance                      | Confidence |
| ----------------------------- | ---------- |
| under 30 seconds and 3 events | high       |
| under 2 minutes and 8 events  | medium     |
| otherwise                     | low        |

## Per session, always

Analysis is per session. A file read in one conversation and a network call in another are never joined, even if they are a minute apart.

## What this means for scan

A scan finding is a **path**: a composition that exists in your configuration. A trace finding is an **observation**: something that happened. `aspex scan --with-trace` puts them side by side so you can see which risky compositions are actually exercised, and `aspex tighten` uses observations to recommend narrower permissions. Neither one turns the other into proof.

<Note>
  Connectors added through claude.ai are configured in the cloud and have no local file. They appear in trace output as **in use, never scanned**, with their call counts, so you know how much of your agents' activity runs through servers no static scan has looked at.
</Note>