Artifact Brief and Delivery Card

An artifact does not need to be complete on day one, but it needs boundaries on day one. Copy this card into a private project directory and keep the independent, revised, reviewed, and delivered versions. Do not include passwords, client data, unauthorised third-party information, or unnecessary personal details.

1. Artifact boundary

# Artifact Brief — YYYY-MM-DD

Artifact name:
Real situation:
Audience/user:
One problem to solve:

Inputs and sources:
My current baseline:
Key assumptions:

Smallest deliverable:
Format, time, and other constraints:
Acceptance criteria:
What this will not include:

First-version deadline:
Who will give feedback:
Evidence to preserve:
How to shrink, pause, or roll back:
Next review date:

2. Four versions

Version	Completion condition	What to keep
Independent	Complete the smallest action without an answer key or AI writing it	Original file, time, bottlenecks
Structure	Audience can find the problem, conclusion, and next step	Structural diff, fact/guess marks
Review	A real reader, user, peer, or defined AI reviewer completes a review	Feedback, error categories, accept/reject reasons
Delivery	Another person can begin without your oral explanation	Version, limits, sources, known issues, handover record

3. Quality gates

Gate	Check	Evidence location	Owner/date
Clear	Does the audience know the problem and next action?
Accurate	Do facts, citations, code, and numbers return to a source or test?
Usable	Can the main action work under real constraints?
Maintainable	Are version, dependencies, limits, and owner visible?
Responsible	Are privacy, copyright, permissions, and error consequences handled?

Write “unverified” when there is no evidence for a pass. Speed, word count, and feature count are proxy measures, not quality gates.

4. AI and feedback record

AI/tool and date:
Work it was allowed to do:
Human judgments I kept:
Three highest-impact issues it raised:
What I accepted/rejected, and why:
Main point restated by a real reader/user:
Most important repair:

Save your version first, then use AI to diagnose, simulate an audience, or generate a parallel task. A person confirms critical facts, permissions, privacy, cost, and final authorship.

5. Delivery and rollback

Delivery audience and permission scope:
Delivery date and version:
Instructions:
Known limits:
Support owner/contact:
Cost and retention period:
Pause/degrade/rollback trigger:
Who must be notified after a problem:
Next review date:

Delivery is not the end. After 3–7 days, run a parallel test and record whether another person can start independently, what still needs explanation, and the one change for the next version.

Related chapters: Artifacts: Turn Learning into Something Made | 90-Day Cycle Map