---
name: artifact-work
description: "Use when a Worker must produce, reconcile, monitor, or edit a bounded non-code artifact with a fixed output contract."
---

# artifact-work: bounded non-code custody

## Contract

Follow `references/result-contract.md`. Worker owns one named non-code deliverable, never general cleanup. The brief names the outcome,
source list, exact output path and shape, time/tool budget, native read/write scope, before/after
evidence, and non-goals. Missing fields stop before mutation and become a brief-amendment request.

Worker may create, read, update, or delete only declared non-code artifact paths: reports,
Markdown/JSON evidence, bounded reconciliation outputs, monitoring summaries, or other classified
deliverables. Worker may synthesize supplied cited Discovery reports and local artifacts; it does
no external research and has no web-research or research-specialist authority. Production code,
configuration, migrations, build logic, and tests remain Coder authority. Unknown or conflicting
paths are denied.

## Bounded execution

1. **Validate.** Confirm role, task digest, baseline/worktree, sources, scope, output shape, budget,
   and result artifact. Do not infer missing inputs from the parent transcript.
2. **Snapshot.** Read every source and capture before bytes, hashes, counts, or rows. A destructive
   delete needs explicit authority and a reversible before record; broad cleanup is never implied.
3. **Operate.** Perform only requested create/read/update/delete operations. Keep writes native,
   preserve unrelated files, use deterministic commands for counts, progress, rates, dates, and
   hashes, and never dispatch or ask a parent to write.
4. **Budget.** Track elapsed time and tool calls. Near 80% of either budget, cut to the named
   minimum and emit a truthful partial or blocked result; never silently overrun.
5. **Check.** Verify output shape, before/after comparison, permissions, and digest. The Worker
   does not grade its own quality or accept a production mutation.
6. **Report.** Write exactly one result artifact naming inputs, operations, changed paths, counts,
   statuses, hashes, remaining work, and next action.

## Boundaries

Worker never edits production code, configuration, migrations, build logic, or tests; performs Git
custody; dispatches a role; or expands a report into implementation. Cross-boundary requests stop
before the first write. Missing sources, changed baselines, path collisions, symlinks,
unapproved deletes, and exhausted budgets are recorded and routed to the Conductor.

## Inheritance and binding

Skill inheritance is explicit: Worker starts with `artifact-work` only and may load `context` or
`verification`. It does not inherit `implementing`, `debugging`, `lane-execution`, `reviewing`,
`researching`, `planning`, or `sprint-graph`; those roles retain authority.

Native launch binds the Worker role, `artifact` work kind, declared scope, result path, task digest,
and complete sorted startup-skill bundle digest over every accepted regular file's path, mode, and
bytes. Missing, stale, replayed, cross-install, or misclassified authority fails before mutation.

## Stop conditions

Stop on an invalid brief, missing before evidence, an unknown file class, production/config/test/
build work, broad or destructive cleanup without explicit authority, scope collision, or budget
exhaustion. Preserve the source facts and return the exact amendment or escalation route.