Artefacts
Statuses and versioning
Move an artefact through its six-stage lifecycle and track every version of it as it evolves.
Artefacts evolve. A strategy gets refined; a decision gets revisited; a deliverable is replaced by its next iteration. Rather than overwriting history, Gleo treats artefacts as living objects with status (where they are in their lifecycle) and versions (the trail of how they got there).
This page is the canonical reference for both. The high-level lifecycle also appears in Lifecycle reference alongside the Template, Playbook, and Session lifecycles.
The status sequence
Six stages, in order:
A walk through each transition:
| Transition | What it means | Triggered by |
|---|---|---|
[*] → Draft |
The artefact is being authored. Visible only to its creator (and facilitators). | Creating a new artefact. |
Draft → Proposed |
Author thinks the artefact is ready for review. Surfaces in the Artefact Library for the relevant audience. | Author. |
Proposed → Confirmed |
Reviewers agree the artefact is correct and well-formed. | Facilitator / Owner. |
Confirmed → Active |
The artefact is now the team's current reference for its concept. | Facilitator / Owner. |
Active → Superseded |
A newer version has taken over as the active artefact for this concept. The old version stays inspectable. | Automatic when a new version is activated; or manually. |
Active / Superseded → Archived |
The artefact is no longer in regular use; hide from default views, preserve for audit. | Owner. |
Proposed → Withdraw |
The author pulls the artefact back to draft for more work. | Author. |
Most artefacts spend most of their life in active. The transitions in and out are deliberate human decisions — not labels you set casually.
"Active" should typically be unique per concept
Two artefacts about the same thing being "active" at the same time creates confusion. The right pattern is: when you're ready for a new version of an artefact to take over, supersede the previous one explicitly and then activate the new one.
If you find yourself with two active artefacts about the same decision, that's the signal to step back and consolidate — not to leave both running.
Creating a new version
When you need to update an artefact in a way that's substantive (not just typo fixes), use the new version flow rather than editing in place. This preserves the old version, gives you a clean transition point, and creates a record of the change.
The flow:
- Open the artefact's detail pane.
- Click New version.
- Edit the body (and any metadata that needs to change).
- Save the new version.
The new version starts in draft. When you're ready to make it the team's current artefact, walk it through the lifecycle (propose → confirm → activate). At the moment you activate the new version, the previous active version automatically transitions to superseded.
The version history drawer
Every artefact carries the chain of its prior versions. Open it from the artefact's detail pane:
- Each row is a version, with its status, who made the change, and when.
- Click any version to inspect what it looked like at that point.
- Versions can be referenced individually — useful for "the strategy as it stood when we shipped Q2 plan."
The version history drawer is the canonical place to answer "when did this change?" and "what did it say before?"
Walkthrough — promoting an artefact
-
1
Open a draft artefact
From the Artefact Library, find an artefact at draft status. Open its detail pane.
-
2
Propose it
Use the status menu at the top of the detail pane to move from draft to proposed. The artefact now becomes visible to reviewers.
-
3
Confirm and activate
A facilitator or owner moves the artefact through confirmed and then active. At this point the artefact is the team's current reference.
-
4
Iterate with new versions
When the artefact needs a substantive update, click New version. Walk the new version through the lifecycle; activating it auto-supersedes the previous active version.
-
5
Archive when out of use
Once neither the active nor any superseded version is referenced regularly, archive them. Archived artefacts hide from default views but stay searchable and inspectable.
Tips & pitfalls
Supersede before you activate. If you forget and end up with two active artefacts about the same concept, fix it immediately — supersede one. Two actives is confusing for everyone (including AI agents reading the Library).
Use new-version, not edit-in-place, for anything substantive. Typo fixes are fine to edit in place. Anything that changes meaning deserves a new version so the trail is preserved.
Withdraw is your friend. If you proposed something prematurely, pull it back to draft with withdraw. The status sequence has the reverse path on purpose.