Multimodal artifact references

2 min readReferenceUpdated 2026-05-22

What you'll find here

How Craik workflows cite audio, image, video, transcript, canvas, document, and other media without embedding raw payloads in portable records.

Locators, not raw media.

Artifact references store locators — not raw media payloads. relative_path locators must be portable relative paths, never absolute local filesystem paths.

What it records

MultimodalArtifactReference:

Artifact id

Task id

Kind

audio · image · video · transcript · canvas · document · other.

Locator kind

artifact_id · content_hash · url · relative_path · external_ref.

Locator

Media MIME type

Redacted media metadata

Policy envelope id

Evidence ids

Receipt ids

Redacted paths

Redaction status

Creation timestamp

Portability

Locator

Use when

Notes

Artifact id / content hash

survives moves

Use when a record must survive machine moves.

URL

safe to persist

Only when the URL does not carry credentials or private query parameters.

Redaction boundary

Never raw payloads.

Media metadata must not persist raw audio, image, video, media bytes, private metadata, credentials, tokens, or private payloads. Private media payload fields are replaced with [REDACTED].

Artifact references preserve evidence, receipt, and policy links so later speech, visual workspace, accessibility, and review surfaces can audit how the artifact entered the workflow.

What's next

ReferenceVoice postureThe voice surface that consumes audio artifacts.ReferenceSpeech-to-text adaptersHow audio artifacts become transcripts.ReferenceVisual workspaceThe canvas surface that renders artifact references.