# What is technical documentation under the EU AI Act?

> Technical documentation is the dossier a provider keeps on a high-risk AI system - its purpose, design, data, performance and monitoring plan.

Source: https://meshin.co/glossary/technical-documentation
Updated: 2026-10-02

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## Why it comes up

It is different from a marketing spec sheet or an engineering wiki page. A regulator or notified body wants the specific content the Act lists, not a general description of the product. It also comes up in procurement due diligence, where a buyer of a high-risk system sometimes asks to see excerpts before signing. A vendor who can produce none of it has told you something.

## What to do about it

Start the document on the first day of build, recording design decisions as you make them. Reconstructing the reasoning behind a choice months later is far harder than writing it down at the time. Version it alongside the system itself, so the documentation for a given release actually matches what shipped. The [AI Governance Starter Kit](/resources/ai-governance-starter-kit) covers the register and policy this documentation builds on, ahead of the deeper regulatory detail.