Reusable Artefact Catalogue Prompt

Reusable Prompt — Thread Artefact Catalogue

Purpose: capture, in a single archived .md file, a verifiable record of everything an AI thread produced — files, conversational outputs, and referenced material — so the work can be audited later.

Design principle: the catalogue must be honest about what it can and cannot verify. The discipline is Chapter-Six-of-Mind-the-Gap discipline: do not let a confident-looking entry sit beside an unreconciled one without marking the difference.

The prompt — paste this into any thread

Produce a comprehensive catalogue, as an .md file saved to /mnt/user-data/outputs/, of every artefact this thread has produced or referenced. Cover three categories, each clearly demarcated:

Category A — Files saved to /mnt/user-data/outputs/ in this thread. These are your direct deliverables. For each, list:

• Sequential reference number (A1, A2, A3…)
• Filename exactly as saved
• File mtime (the disk timestamp of creation)
• The document's internal date if it differs from the mtime
• Word count (extracted via the appropriate tool) or file size in bytes if word count is not extractable
• Brief description in one or two sentences — what the artefact is and what it does
• Verification status: [VERIFIED ON DISK] or [NOT FOUND ON DISK] — based on a direct directory listing performed at the time the catalogue is written

Category B — Artefacts referenced from earlier scope (transcript summary, pre-thread work, or prior sessions) but not directly verifiable from this thread's outputs. For each:

• Sequential reference number (B1, B2, B3…)
• Filename as referenced (with [as referenced] flag if you are not certain of the exact filename)
• Date as referenced
• Brief description of what the artefact is
• Source of the reference — e.g. "named in transcript summary," "referenced in conversation"
• Verification status: [REFERENCED — NOT DIRECTLY VERIFIED]

Category C — Substantial conversational outputs that did not become files but were significant pieces of work. For each:

• Sequential reference number (C1, C2, C3…)
• Approximate date or position in the thread
• Description of what was produced — the topic, the structural work, the reasoning piece
• Approximate word count if known, otherwise marked [in-conversation]
• Why it is being catalogued — what makes it a piece of work worth preserving rather than ordinary conversational exchange

Thread metadata — list at the top of the catalogue:

• Your identifier in this thread (if a name, persona, or working identity has been used — e.g. "Book Man," "Jose," or whatever the thread has been called). If none, mark [no identifier used].
• Earliest verifiable artefact timestamp in Category A
• Latest verifiable artefact timestamp in Category A
• Current date at time of writing the catalogue
• Scope start date — the date the earliest referenced or produced artefact in any category dates to, marked with its source
• Approximate thread duration (earliest scope to current date)

Validation discipline:

• Before listing each Category A entry, perform a ls -la /mnt/user-data/outputs/ (or equivalent directory listing) and check the file is actually present. If it is missing, mark [NOT FOUND ON DISK] rather than silently omitting or assuming.
• For Category A, the mtime is the canonical creation timestamp. The document's internal date is a claim made inside the document and may differ — list both where they differ, and note the divergence in the description.
• For Category B, be explicit that the timestamps and filenames are as referenced, not as verified.
• For Category C, do not inflate. Conversational exchanges that were not substantial pieces of work should not be catalogued here. Use judgement: if it took meaningful reasoning, produced a structural argument, or would be useful to retrieve later, include it. If it was ordinary dialogue, do not.

Honest closing section:

End the catalogue with a short section titled "Honest reconciliation notes." In this section, name:

• Any Category A files where the mtime and the document's internal date diverge meaningfully
• Any Category B entries you are genuinely uncertain about
• Anything you suspect may exist but cannot verify
• Anything in your context that suggests files were produced but have not appeared in your directory listing

Formatting:

• Save as .md to /mnt/user-data/outputs/
• Filename should include the date and a thread-identifying suffix where possible (e.g. Thread-Artefact-Catalogue-2026-06-09-BookMan.md)
• Use headers, tables where useful, and inline markers ([VERIFIED ON DISK], [REFERENCED], [in-conversation]) consistently so the document is scannable

Refusal to smooth:

If you cannot complete any category — e.g. the directory listing fails, you have no transcript summary visible, you do not know your thread identifier — say so explicitly in the relevant section. Do not fill in confident-looking entries to cover the gap. The reader will rely on this catalogue as audit material. An honest "I cannot see this" is more useful than a smoothed-over reconstruction.

Notes on using this prompt across multiple threads

• The prompt is thread-agnostic. Paste it as a complete message in any AI thread where you want a catalogue of what was produced.
• Each thread's catalogue will be honest within its own context — it will not be able to verify artefacts from other threads.
• To build a complete cross-thread archive, run the prompt in each thread separately and consolidate the resulting .md files locally.
• Where threads have used persona names or working identities (Book Man, Jose, etc.), the catalogues will be self-labelled by that identity, making consolidation straightforward.