artifact-analysis

Type: types/tag-readme.md

Artifact analysis classifies retained artifacts by substrate, form, lineage and authority. Assign this tag to definitions, tests or design consequences of the scheme or a field. A field distinction must change a design or maintenance conclusion; merely filling in a record is insufficient. Document-system covers writing and checking documents; this tag covers retained artifacts. A child of learning-theory.

The scheme

• Axes of artifact analysis — the four fields and the operative part being classified
• Map a design space before selecting — derive form options before inherited packages narrow the search
• What the four-field record exposes — efficiency, security, and sovereignty questions
• Memory design adds operational axes — write and read policies supplement artifact classification
• Opacity — question-relative inspection cost; a proposed condition behind its sources
• Implementations do not establish shared semantics — modeling a consumer does not establish conformance

• Symbolic form holds consumers to a semantic reference — adoption fixes permitted behavior, not adequacy

• English can approximate a model-defined prompt language — clause meanings support inspection without parameter blocks

Definitions

• Retained artifact — persisted state consumed with behavioral consequences
• Operative part — the behavior-affecting portion or mechanism
• Storage substrate — where retained state persists
• Representational form — encoding and consumption determine the default review method
• Lineage — source dependencies determine refresh and review obligations
• Behavioral authority — consumer, channel, and force
• Knowledge artifact — consumed as evidence, reference, explanation, or advice
• Answerability — nameable referent, asserted property, and correction-triggering discrepancy
• System-definition artifact — consumed with binding operational force

Applications

• Action models and consumption paths — direct execution and model-mediated use have different authority
• Crystallized reasoning under context scarcity — retained instructions avoid repeating reasoning in context
• Content kind, lineage, and authority — separate region-level classification from whole-artifact contracts
• Superseded choices and beliefs — content kind determines retention and rewrite obligations
• Local materialization — conjectures benefits of generated local views over distant declarations
• Adaptation signals and retained surfaces — update pressure does not select form or authority
• Consumption channels deliver force — channel position can confer authority without earned provenance
• Six Commonplace paths — broad authority-path coverage leaves completeness open
• Fixed triple, changed use — consumer, channel and force do not identify a path without its applicability
• Stale self-description — the detecting process consults the artifact that drifted
• Attempted recovery identifies informational gaps — recoverability alone establishes neither provenance nor authority
• Seven documentation cases — dependency and drift checks distinguish copies from useful synthesis
• Verification needs a typed target — classification supplies the domain for reusable checks
• Strategies and run state — different consumption roles justify different retention policies
• Ephemeral computation — discarding generated artifacts trades accumulation for simplicity
• When ephemerality is safe — disposal depends on embedded knowledge and explanatory-reach
• RLM, λ-RLM, Tendril, and llm-do — restriction and persistence distinguish generated capabilities
• Adaptation survey and memory governance — the four fields expose governance gaps
• Compiled memory views — lineage and authority govern regeneration and drift checks
• Code as prompt or symbolic operation — consumption path changes what the same artifact does
• Commitment creates new ground truth — added resolutions require supersession rather than recomputation
• Schema deferral and database authority — centralization and canonicality are separate commitments
• Edge ownership and storage choice — moving a record changes substrate, not its authority
• Explicit retention and selective revision — compare forms through available operations and collateral effects
• Reproduction does not transfer authority — replacement needs governed identity and revision guarantees
• Production methods and representational forms — learning an artifact does not determine its form
• Representational-form coevolution — forms differ in update pace, review, and credit assignment