Working-Context Bundle — format

A portable snapshot of an agent's committed working context plus its lifecycle — so an agent (any model, any runtime) can resume work, not just retrieve facts. This is not a memory archive; it composes with the memory-unit formats that already exist.

The gap this fills

Every portable agent-memory format standardizes the memory unit (facts / records): Portable AI Memory, AMP, OAMP, content-addressed grains, plain files. None of them standardizes the layer that actually lets an agent pick up where another left off: what the agent holds in force right now (a bounded, typed working set) and how it got there (a declarative commit lifecycle).

So this format owns only that missing layer, and references the unit layer instead of redefining it. A bundle is small, human-readable, and composable.

Bundle layout

A bundle is a directory:

<bundle>/
  manifest.json      # what this is + which unit layer it composes with
  snapshot.json      # the bounded, typed committed working state
  lifecycle.jsonl    # append-only log of commit / supersede / deprecate decisions
  snapshot.md        # human-readable mirror of snapshot.json (interface ≠ substrate)

manifest.json and snapshot.json are required; lifecycle.jsonl and snapshot.md are optional.

manifest.json

field	type	notes
format	string	always artesian.working-context
version	string	0.1 — readers accept the same major version
agent_id	string?	optional producer id
created_at	RFC3339
unit_source	string	inline (entries carry content) or the unit layer this composes with: pam, amp, files, …
unit_ref	string?	pointer/URI to the external unit store when unit_source != inline

snapshot.json — the committed working state

A bounded (budget_tokens), typed (schema slots) set of entries — the ACC committed context state, made portable.

field	type	notes
schema	string[]	slot names, in render order (e.g. decision, constraint, fact, task-state)
budget_tokens	int	the saturation bound
token_count	int	current footprint; must equal the sum of entry tokens
entries[]	object	the committed entries

Each entry:

field	type	notes
id	string	stable within the bundle
slot	string	one of schema
content	string	may be empty when resolution = pointer
tokens	int
score	float	committed value (drives eviction)
resolution	enum	full | compressed | pointer — how the content is currently represented
unit_ref	string?	reference into the unit layer, when composed
committed_at	RFC3339

lifecycle.jsonl — what is in force, and why

One JSON object per line, appended in order. This is the part that travels with the data so an importer trusts the right thing:

field	type	notes
ts	RFC3339
entry_id	string	references a snapshot entry
decision	enum	commit | evict | supersede | deprecate
status	enum	hypothesis | active | validated | deprecated | superseded
supersedes	string?	the entry id this one replaces
reason	object?	qualify-gate signals: { relevance, novelty, drift }

Tiny example

snapshot.json (one entry shown):

{
  "schema": ["decision", "constraint", "fact", "task-state"],
  "budget_tokens": 4096,
  "token_count": 7,
  "entries": [
    {
      "id": "a", "slot": "decision",
      "content": "ship the working-context bundle first",
      "tokens": 7, "score": 1.0, "resolution": "full",
      "committed_at": "2026-06-21T08:30:00Z"
    }
  ]
}

lifecycle.jsonl:

{"ts":"2026-06-21T08:30:00Z","entry_id":"a","decision":"commit","status":"active","reason":{"relevance":0.9,"novelty":0.5,"drift":0.0}}

Reference implementation

Artesian implements this layer in the headgate crate (WorkingContextBundle) and exposes it on the CLI:

artesian kit export --format bundle --output ./wc        # write a bundle from the loop kit
artesian kit import ./wc                                  # validate + print the resumable context

A live ACC session can produce a richer snapshot directly from its committed state via WorkingContextSnapshot::from_ccs.

Composes with

• Unit layer — reference Portable AI Memory / AMP / files / any store via unit_source + per-entry unit_ref; this bundle does not redefine the unit.
• Encryption / compliance — the bundle is a payload; it can sit inside an encrypted memory-cell envelope without change.

Status

v0.1, internal to Artesian, deliberately minimal and name-agnostic so the layer can be promoted to a standalone open specification without code churn.