Artifact Pipeline Management

Technical guide for managing the four-stage artifact reification pipeline.

Pipeline Overview

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Cognitive → Intellectual → Product → Capital
(notes)     (specs)         (deliverables) (assets)

Stage Details

1. Cognitive Artifacts

Purpose: Reduce mental load
Characteristics: Ephemeral, personal, unstructured
Examples: Meeting notes, whiteboard photos, sketches, brainstorm lists
Retention: Temporary (delete after synthesis)

Creation:

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sea artifact create --stage cognitive --type notes --content "Interview findings..."

2. Intellectual Artifacts

Purpose: Synthesize knowledge
Characteristics: Structured, team-shared, project-scoped
Examples: ADRs, PRDs, SDSs, protocols, analyses
Retention: Project lifetime

Synthesis Flow:

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sea artifact synthesize cognitive-art-001 --to intellectual
# Generates: TransitionToken tt-synthesis-001
# Creates: Intellectual Artifact

3. Information Products

Purpose: Deliver market/domain value
Characteristics: Polished, stakeholder-facing, deployable
Examples: Deployed code, client reports, campaigns
Retention: Indefinite

Refinement Flow:

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sea artifact refine intellectual-art-001 --to product
# Generates: TransitionToken tt-refinement-001
# Creates: Information Product

4. Intellectual Capital

Purpose: Organizational asset
Characteristics: Reusable, generalizable, valued
Examples: Methodologies, templates, proven frameworks
Retention: Permanent

Capitalization Flow:

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sea artifact capitalize product-art-001 --approver human-sovereign
# Requires: SignatureToken (SovereignGate policy)
# Generates: TransitionToken tt-capital-001
# Assigns: Capital value via Exchange Rate Policy

TransitionToken Structure

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transition_token:
  id: tt-synthesis-001
  from_stage: cognitive
  to_stage: intellectual
  artifact_id: art-hypothesis-doc
  timestamp: "2026-01-04T21:00:00Z"
  actor: pm-agent-001
  hash: sha256:abc123...
  logged_to_ifl: true

Provenance Gating

NoTeleportation Policy:

Policy "NoTeleportation" per Constraint Obligation priority 10
as: forall p in resources where p.name = "ProjectionToken":
    exists t in resources where t.name = "TransitionToken"

Enforcement: Cannot skip stages; must have lineage.

Exchange Rate Policies

Capital Valuation:

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exchange_rate_policy:
  methodology:
    work_hours: 40
    capital_value: $8,000
    reuse_multiplier: 3x
  
  template:
    work_hours: 20
    capital_value: $4,000
    reuse_multiplier: 5x

Best Practices

1. Synthesize early: Don’t let cognitive artifacts accumulate
2. Enforce lineage: Always generate TransitionTokens
3. Review before capital: Human approval for capitalization
4. Measure reuse: Track capital artifact usage across cases

Last Updated: January 2026