Artifact Core

Artifact Core is a registry of versioned deliverables and a resolver for the latest good one. It answers a single hard question reliably: which version is current, and is it actually usable? Register a version and its content becomes immutable — a later write with the same label but different content returns a CONFLICT instead of silently overwriting. The SHA-256 hash is computed on the content you provide and compared to any declared hash; a match is marked as a match, never asserted as 'verified' without proof. CURRENT is always explicit: you designate it with mark_current, it is never guessed, and it can never point at a withdrawn version. resolve_current returns the current version only if it is usable — if it targets a withdrawn version, an inconsistent hash, or locations that are all missing, it refuses to return it as current, explains why, and recommends the latest usable version instead; resolve_latest_good runs the same scan and is honest when there is none. Withdrawing a version (withdraw_version) is a terminal, audited lifecycle transition — there is no un-withdraw — while re-pointing CURRENT with mark_current stays reversible; in both cases the immutable content and the audit trail are never touched. verify_location records an existence attestation (VERIFIED or MISSING, with who and when): the cloud connector does not read your remote files itself — it logs your attestation and feeds it into the resolver's existence check. compare_versions is a deterministic diff over type, content hash, quality, lifecycle, provenance and size, and leaves content identity undetermined when a hash is absent rather than guessing. history is a self-hashed, write-once audit log with a reproducible journal hash that is tamper-evident (it detects naive editing of an entry); it is not described as tamper-proof, since that would require a server-keyed HMAC. Nothing is invented: missing data stays null or UNKNOWN. Artifact Core makes no external calls and needs no account; it is an information and bookkeeping tool, not an executor — it never deploys, sends or changes anything in your systems.