Artifacts

AID produces a well-defined set of named artifacts during its pipeline phases. Each artifact has a fixed path convention, a clear owner (the phase/skill that writes it), and a defined consumer (the next phase or skill that reads it).

See Repository Structure for the layout of the repository itself. See Knowledge Base doc types for the 14 KB document templates.

Work-area artifacts

These artifacts live under .aid/{work-id}/ for each active work item.

Artifact	Path	Produced by	Description
REQUIREMENTS.md	.aid/{work}/REQUIREMENTS.md	aid-interview	Functional and non-functional requirements gathered during the Interview phase. Contains user stories, acceptance criteria, constraints, assumptions, and priority rankings.
SPEC.md (work-root)	.aid/{work}/SPEC.md	aid-interview (lite) or aid-specify (full)	The work-root technical specification. On the lite path, produced directly by aid-interview; on the full path, produced feature-by-feature by aid-specify.
SPEC.md (per-feature)	.aid/{work}/features/{feature}/SPEC.md	aid-specify	Full-path only. One spec per feature, produced by aid-specify. Each feature SPEC is self-contained with its own acceptance criteria and technical decisions.
PLAN.md	.aid/{work}/PLAN.md	aid-plan	The delivery plan: ordered deliverables (each a functional MVP), feature-to-delivery mapping, and the rationale for the sequencing strategy.
task-{NNN}.md	.aid/{work}/tasks/task-{NNN}.md	aid-detail (full path) or aid-interview (lite path)	Individual task files. Each task has one of the eight types (RESEARCH, DESIGN, IMPLEMENT, TEST, DOCUMENT, MIGRATE, REFACTOR, CONFIGURE), acceptance criteria, scope, and dependencies. On the full path aid-detail produces them; on the lite path aid-interview emits them directly. Tasks are the unit of execution for aid-execute.
STATE.md (work-area)	.aid/{work}/STATE.md	all skills	State machine state for the current work item. Records which phase the work is in, what has been completed, and Q&A/review history for re-entrant skill invocations.
IMPEDIMENT-task-NNN.md	.aid/{work}/IMPEDIMENT-task-NNN.md	aid-execute (developer agent)	Formal escalation artifact, produced by the Execute phase. Created when implementation reveals a spec contradiction or impossible acceptance criterion. Contains: type, evidence, blocked task, and proposed resolution. Triggers the appropriate feedback loop.

Knowledge Base artifacts

These artifacts live under .aid/knowledge/ and represent the living understanding of the project.

Artifact	Path	Produced by	Description
KB documents (14 types)	.aid/knowledge/{doc-type}.md	aid-discover, aid-housekeep	The 14 standard Knowledge Base documents — architecture, coding-standards, domain-glossary, and more. See KB doc types for the full list.
STATE.md (knowledge-area)	.aid/knowledge/STATE.md	aid-discover	Discovery state: Q&A log, approval history, and the last-approved KB snapshot timestamp. Drives re-entrant discovery runs and aid-housekeep delta logic.
knowledge-summary.html	.aid/knowledge/knowledge-summary.html	aid-summarize	Self-contained HTML summary of the entire Knowledge Base with inlined Mermaid diagrams, light/dark theme, and click-to-expand lightbox. Generated on demand.

Generator artifacts (manifests)

These files are committed derived output, outside the content collection root.

Artifact	Path	Produced by	Description
Sync manifest	site/scripts/.synced-manifest.json	sync-docs.mjs	Lists the four doc-migration outputs owned by the sync script. Used by CI drift-check.
Reference manifest	site/scripts/.reference-manifest.json	gen-reference.mjs	Lists the four generated reference pages owned by the reference generator. Used by CI drift-check.

Install artifacts

These files are written by the aid add command into the target project.

Artifact	Path	Produced by	Description
AID manifest	.aid/.aid-manifest.json	aid add	Records every file installed by aid add, the tool version, and checksum-based ownership records for root agent files. Drives aid update and aid remove.
Version file	.aid/.aid-version	aid add	Human-readable one-line version string — convenience companion to the manifest.
CLAUDE.md	CLAUDE.md (project root)	aid add claude-code	Claude Code project-context file. AID’s root agent file for the Claude Code host tool. Protected from silent overwrites by the protect-on-diff mechanism.
AGENTS.md	AGENTS.md (project root)	aid add {codex,cursor,copilot-cli,antigravity}	Root agent file for Codex, Cursor, Copilot CLI, and Antigravity host tools.

Pipeline-scoped delivery artifacts

These artifacts are produced during aid-execute delivery branches.

Artifact	Path	Produced by	Description
Delivery branch	aid/{work}-delivery-NNN (git branch)	aid-execute	One git branch per delivery. aid-execute creates it, commits implementation work to it, and the delivery is merged when the review loop exits at grade ≥ minimum.
Delivery PR	GitHub Pull Request	aid-operator	The pull request that merges the delivery branch. aid-operator creates it with release notes and links to the tasks it closes.