Action

Execution since 1.0 aow:Action

A single execution event in which an Actor invokes a Skill, in service of a Task, at a point in time.

Records who did what, when, and why. Every Result is linked to the Action that produced it.

Attributes

Attribute	Type	Required	Description
`started_at`	datetime	yes	When the Action began.
`ended_at`	datetime		When the Action ended.
`status`	one of `succeeded`, `failed`, `blocked`, `escalated`, `compensated`		How the Action ended.
`rationale`	text		The Actor's stated reason for the Action, recorded for explainability.
`idempotency_key`	string		Key that makes a retried Action safe to repeat.
`inputs`	json		The inputs passed to the Skill.

Every entity also has an id and a type, and may carry label, description, and the provenance facet: version, created_at, created_by, revision_of.

Relationships

Relationship	Points to	How many	Required	Meaning
`concerns`	Work Item	many		The Work Item the Intent, Task, or Action is about.
`performed_by`	Actor	one	yes	The Actor that carried out the Action.
`fulfills`	Task	one		The Task the Action was performed for.
`invokes`	Skill	one		The Skill the Action used.
`approved_by`	Human Actor	many		People who confirmed the Action, Plan, or Result before it took effect. Required whenever the effective Assurance Level or a Policy calls for human confirmation.
`has_confidence`	Confidence	one		The Confidence attached to this Result, Observation, Action, or Plan.

Pointed to by

From	Relationship	Read backward as
Result, Signal, Observation	`generated_by`	generated
Observation	`about`	observed by
Feedback	`feedback_on`	received feedback

Notes

Named but not defined in version 1.0. In 2.0, the Action produces the Result. A Skill is a capability. An Action is one use of it.

Alignments

Standard or protocol	Term	Correspondence
W3C PROV-O	`prov:Activity`	subClassOf
schema.org	`schema:Action`	closeMatch
OpenTelemetry GenAI	`execute_tool span`	relatedMatch
SOA-to-Agentic mapping	`Idempotent Action`	relatedMatch

Example

Source: examples/claims-processing.jsonld. The example passes all validation checks.

{
  "id": "act-extract-84933",
  "type": "Action",
  "performed_by": "agent-validation",
  "fulfills": "task-extract-84933",
  "invokes": "skill-extract-claim-fields",
  "concerns": [
    "claim-84933"
  ],
  "started_at": "2026-09-14T09:12:06Z",
  "ended_at": "2026-09-14T09:12:09Z",
  "status": "succeeded"
}

Term reference · JSON Schema · SHACL shape aowsh:ActionShape