artifactAdditional

artifactadditional is a term used in digital asset management and software build processes to denote an optional field or parameter that stores supplementary metadata about an artifact beyond core attributes such as identifier, version, and type. The concept emphasizes that artifacts can carry additional context that may be useful for discovery, provenance, or rights management without changing the primary artifact schema.

In practice, artifactadditional is typically represented as a key-value map or a nested object within a data model, API response, or storage format. Common contents include provenance information, digitization or extraction details, licensing and rights, related artifacts, checksums, and external references. Because the exact structure varies by system, artifactadditional is generally treated as flexible and extensible metadata rather than a fixed schema.

Usage and naming conventions differ across environments. Some schemas explicitly use artifactAdditional, while others may adopt artifact_metadata_additional, additional_artifact, or similar variants. In all cases, the field is usually optional and designed to be backward compatible with core artifact attributes.

Example usage might include storing provenance, digitization date, rights or permissions, and a list of related artifacts within artifactadditional. For instance, a repository entry could attach provenance="the archive", digitizationDate="2023-11-02", rights="CC-BY-4.0", and relatedArtifacts=["A123","A124"] to provide richer context without altering the primary artifact record.

Care should be taken to validate and govern artifactadditional data to maintain data quality and privacy, especially when metadata could reveal sensitive information.