Typed artifacts

Typed artifacts capture work and its supporting findings, evaluations and decisions. Each has an explicit type and lifecycle, so workflows can identify results, pass them between tasks and act on them.

Artifact types

Type	What it captures
Document	Research, proposals, plans, reports or other authored content.
Finding	A specific defect, risk, objection or insight, with its subject, impact and lifecycle state.
Evaluation	A structured judgement against an evaluation lens, including a verdict and supporting summary.
Decision	A question, the available options and, once ratified, the chosen outcome.

Documents

Documents hold authored work such as research, proposals, plans and reports. Their metadata identifies the document type, while the content carries the work itself.

Lifecycle

Draft → Finalised → Promoted → Superseded

Drafts can be edited or abandoned. Finalising a draft locks its content; promotion records its acceptance once any validation and review requirements are met. Revisions create new versions, preserving the earlier work.

Structure

Part	What it contains
Document type	A type key, name and description, with versioned definitions and an optional validation policy.
Content version	An immutable revision of the document, with references to its predecessor and, where specified, its comparison baseline.
Structured fields	Values extracted from an exact content version for later tasks to consume.

Workflow inputs and outputs can select a specific type version. The type version identifies the expected definition and validation policy; the content version identifies the work produced.

Findings

Findings capture individual defects, risks, objections or insights so each can be tracked and addressed separately. A finding can be recorded independently or linked to an evaluation.

Lifecycle

Open → ResolvedWithdrawnSupersededDuplicate

Findings retain their history as they are addressed, withdrawn or linked to replacement or duplicate findings. Workflows can also carry findings forward, dismiss them or accept their risk. Dismissal and risk acceptance require a ratified decision authorising that outcome for the specific finding.

Structure

Part	What it contains
Observation	A title, with optional summary and details.
Subject and origin	What the finding concerns and where it came from, including an evaluation reference where applicable.
Classification	The finding’s kind, impact and optional confidence.
Lifecycle and links	Its current state, change history and relationships to other findings.

Evaluations

Evaluations record a structured assessment against an evaluation lens: the perspective or criteria used to judge the work. The verdict gives workflows a result they can use in routing and acceptance rules.

Verdicts

Passed Failed Needs review Blocked

Each evaluation records a verdict. Re-evaluating creates a new evaluation and preserves the previous result.

Structure

Part	What it contains
Lens	The identity of the assessment being performed.
Subjects	References to the work or records being assessed.
Verdict	A status, priority and supporting summary, with optional reason code and structured checks.

Decisions

Decisions record a question, the available options and the outcome chosen through ratification. Supporting documents, findings and evaluations preserve the evidence behind that choice.

Lifecycle

Proposed → Open → DecidedWithdrawnSuperseded

In the desired lifecycle, a candidate starts Proposed and becomes Open when its producing task completes. It can then be Decided, Withdrawn or Superseded. Ratification records the outcome and marks the candidate Decided; later outcomes preserve the earlier history.

Structure

Part	What it contains
Question and options	The choice to be made and the available alternatives.
Supporting evidence	References to the records informing the decision.
Outcome	The ratified disposition, including the selected option where applicable.
History	Earlier outcomes and their supersession relationships.

Workflow use

The Workflow Engine names task outputs and selects which results later steps receive as context. Its routing and promotion rules determine how the recorded evidence affects the run.

Findings, evaluations and decisions that reference a document identify the exact content version being considered, so a later revision does not change the subject of an earlier review.

• Revision: findings identify work that needs attention and remain traceable as it changes.
• Routing: structured verdicts and review results provide values for branch conditions.
• Promotion: declared requirements determine which evaluations, decisions or approvals are needed to accept a version.

Artifacts also provide quality evidence for Runtime Evaluations.