One who keeps a thing alive by small regular care. In the base, the scripted hands that tend the record itself — never the meaning.
The agent noun of tend, from attend, Latin attendere (to stretch toward, to give heed); one who keeps a thing alive by small regular care performs the same stretched attention the Latin verb first named.
Care given in small steady doses rather than one grand gesture. Inside the base, this names the automated hand that keeps the record itself in working order, leaving whatever the record means entirely untouched.