Artifact As Truth

Artifact As Truth. The failure mode where a generated, copied, rendered, exported, cached, or deployed artifact starts defining authoritative knowledge instead of deriving from its source of record. Artifact as truth usually begins as convenience: the rendered page is easier to edit, the report is easier to quote, the deployed copy is easier to inspect, or the archive is easier to share. It becomes architectural drift when the artifact can no longer be deleted and rebuilt without losing meaning.