Publication Freeze

Tier: 4 · Normative weight: implements TM-PUB-001–TM-PUB-004 Requires: Evidence Packet

Problem it removes

The site was redeployed, the report re-sent, the artifact rebuilt — and now nobody can say what any recipient actually received. Regenerating from later truth and calling it the original quietly rewrites the outward record.

Mechanism

A publication packet freezes each deliberate boundary crossing: the exact artifact digest, file count, and byte size (TM-PUB-001); the source revision and authored material it was produced from (TM-PUB-002); the reviewer, deployment identity, public URL, and the observation that verified it. The packet is immutable — a later artifact gets a new packet that may name the exact predecessor it supersedes, and the predecessor remains the historical account of what it froze (TM-PUB-003). Lifecycle states stay distinct (TM-PUB-004): a successful local build proves a candidate can be constructed, not that it was reviewed, deployed, reachable, or consumed — each of those is its own recorded observation.

Cost

Authoring: the packet schema exists; the first freeze is an hour. Per change: one packet per real publication event — releases, not previews. Per session: none.

Do not adopt when

Nothing consequential crosses a boundary: no deployments, no sent documents, no artifacts a recipient will hold you to.

Evidence

The reference instance’s TMP-0001 froze this documentation’s first public artifact and recorded its verification (frozen history, per its charter). Assessed in flow (customer-facing publication freeze) and cloud-ops (release and rollback identity). Validated by publication.schema.json.

Template

None this pass — copy the shape from publication.schema.json and the publication contract.

Related patterns

Generated Artifacts produces the deterministic candidate a freeze binds. Facets is the boundary surface a publication often ships to.