Document Role
Choose the document role that matches what your artifact is supposed to do: store data, define a template, or drive a process.
Choose the Job Your Artifact Plays
These standards are easier to use if you read them as roles, not as abstract categories. Ask what the artifact is mainly supposed to do, then choose the matching role standard.
Data
Choose the Data Document Role when the artifact's main job is to hold structured facts that should validate cleanly before anything is rendered or executed.
- Best fit: records, catalogs, datasets, and governed documents whose meaning should stay stable independent of presentation.
- Controls: validation, diagnostics, schema identity, release packaging, and data-oriented conformance rules.
- Not for: report rendering behavior or workflow execution semantics as the primary job.
Template
Choose the Template Document Role when the artifact's main job is to turn governed inputs into a readable output with an explicit markdown-compliant template contract.
- Best fit: markdown-structured template documents, presentation-oriented document types, and output contracts with sanitization behavior.
- Controls: template-document semantics, markdown AST rules, paired contracts, and template-specific security and diagnostics.
- Not for: using the template layer to replace data validation.
Process
Choose the Process Document Role when the artifact's main job is to define workflow behavior such as catalogs, ordered steps, prompts, scripts, and execution-related validation.
- Best fit: workflow packages, prompt-and-script systems, and process-oriented artifact bundles.
- Controls: workflow structure, semantic validation, support artifacts, and process publication rules.
- Not for: pure data records or Report generation as the primary artifact job.
