Documents and artifacts
Where each kind of written output lives in Alan, and how to choose between a document and an artifact.
Alan keeps written work in two places:
- A document is standalone knowledge that belongs to the team, such as a PRD, spec, or wiki page.
- An artifact is an output of a specific piece of work: a task, an automation, or a session.
Choose by purpose: use a document for knowledge the team will reuse, even when you write it during a task. Use an artifact for that task's plan, report, or other deliverable.
At a glance
| Document | Artifact | |
|---|---|---|
| Belongs to | A team, or the whole organization in Workspace Docs | Exactly one task, automation, or standalone session |
| Types | Document, whiteboard | Plan, Test report, Document, Whiteboard |
| Find it in | Docs in the team sidebar | The task or session's Artifacts panel |
| Typical content | PRDs, specs, meeting notes, roadmaps, architecture sketches | A plan to approve, test evidence, a task summary, a diagram for one change |
| Created by | You or an agent, often from a template | Usually an agent while it works; you can also choose New in Artifacts |
| Comments | ✅ | ✅ |
| Public link | Share → Publish to web | Publish from the artifact viewer |
| Organize | Folders and nested pages | Grouped by its task, automation, or session |
Artifact types
| Type | Captures |
|---|---|
| Plan | What will change, why, how it will be verified, and open decisions |
| Test report | What was tested, with screenshots and recordings, and a pass, fail, or mixed result |
| Document | A written deliverable from the work, such as a summary, spec, or notes |
| Whiteboard | A diagram or sketch on a canvas |
Read pull request reviews under Alan Review on the pull request. When you start a review for a pull request with a primary linked task, Alan also creates a document artifact on that task. See Task artifacts.
Team docs and Workspace Docs
- Team docs live under Docs in a team (
/teams/{teamId}/docs). Everyone in the team can open them. - Workspace Docs are organization-wide documents and whiteboards (
/workspace/wiki). They appear in the sidebar when Workspace Docs is turned on in Settings → Organisation → General, and need the Enterprise tier.
See Documents, Whiteboard, and Organisation settings.
Sharing outside Alan
Documents, whiteboards, and artifacts can all be published to a public, read-only link that anyone with the link can open. Check for secrets and customer data before publishing, and unpublish to turn the link off. See Links and IDs.