Attaching Artifacts to PD

Attach a rich-text Artifact to any PD node — Solution, Feature, Model, or Controller — so the reasoning behind your spec lives right next to the structure.

What you'll learn

  • What an Artifact is in m18t.
  • How to attach an Artifact to any PD node — Solution, Feature, Model, Controller, and the rest.
  • Why the structured spec and the rich-text thinking are kept as separate-but-linked things.

This pairs with The Product Development Concept. PD gives you structure; artifacts give you the prose that explains it.

What an Artifact is

An Artifact is a rich-text document with a title, a status, a priority, and dates. You write it in the editor (it stores structured rich text), and it lives in the Artifacts Manager as a first-class record in its own right — not a comment buried on another entity.

The point of an artifact is to hold the thinking that's normally trapped in a random Google Doc: a brief, a decision record, research notes, a spec rationale, a link to a mockup. In most tools that context ends up in a separate doc, a Slack thread, or someone's head — disconnected from the work it describes. An artifact keeps it as a real, brand-scoped record you can attach where it belongs.

Why structure and prose are separate

The PD tables are deliberately structured — Models have Attributes, Features have Models, statuses roll up. That structure is what makes the dependency graph and the rollups possible. But structure is bad at holding why: why a Feature exists, why a Model is shaped the way it is, what you decided and rejected.

Rather than cram free text into the structured fields (which would break the structure's value), m18t keeps the two separate and links them. The Model stays a clean record; the reasoning lives in an artifact attached to it. You get both — queryable structure and readable context — without one polluting the other.

An artifact can attach to more than just PD nodes — it can also link to content, assets, and other artifacts. The polymorphic attachment to PD entities is the path this article covers.

How to attach an artifact to a PD node

  1. Open any PD entity — for example a Model — from the Product Manager tables.
  2. Switch to the Artifacts tab on that record. (It appears once the record has been saved — you can't link to a node that doesn't exist yet.)
  3. Link an existing artifact, or create one and link it. The link is what ties this artifact to this specific node.
  4. The PD tables show an Artifacts rollup column on the entity, so you can see at a glance which nodes have thinking attached and the status spread of those artifacts.

The same artifact can be attached to several nodes — a single architecture-decision record can hang off every Model it affects.

Variations

  • From the PD side or the Artifacts side. You can link from a node's Artifacts tab, or work in the Artifacts Manager and target a PD node from there.
  • Reuse one artifact across nodes. Because the link is a relation, attaching one artifact to many PD entities doesn't duplicate it — there's one source document, many links.
  • Artifacts on a whiteboard. Artifacts can also be dragged onto a whiteboard as entity nodes, so a brief can sit visually next to the models it describes.

FAQ

What's the difference between an artifact and a Model's description field? The description is a short label-level field on the structured record. An artifact is a full rich-text document with its own status, priority, and dates that you attach by reference. Use the description for a one-liner; use an artifact for the real write-up.

Can one artifact be attached to several PD nodes? Yes. The attachment is a link, so the same artifact can hang off many entities without being copied.

Why don't I see the Artifacts tab on a new record? The tab appears after the record is saved — you can only link an artifact to a node that exists. Save first, then attach.

Are artifacts brand-scoped? Yes, like the rest of PD. An artifact belongs to a brand; see The Brand Switcher.

Can artifacts attach to things outside PD? Yes — to content, assets, and other artifacts as well. PD nodes are one of several attachment targets.

What's next

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