attachedBy

Attachedby is a term used in information systems and software development to denote the user or agent who attached a file, item, or evidence to another object. It is not a universal standard, but a label that appears in various data models, APIs, and user interfaces to capture provenance of an attachment.

In practice, attachedby commonly appears as a field name in schemas, storing a reference to a user entity or account. It is often accompanied by related metadata such as the attachment timestamp and, in some cases, the method or device used to perform the attachment. Typical implementations may name the field attachedby, attached_by, or attachedBy and may use a separate field for the actor’s identifier (for example, a user_id) and another for the actor’s role or permissions.

Semantics and usage patterns vary by system. Attachedby is intended to support auditability and accountability by indicating who attached an item, rather than describing the attachment’s relationship to other objects. It is complementary to the actual attachment record or link, which represents the object being attached. Some systems treat the value as sensitive data and apply privacy controls, data minimization, and access restrictions accordingly.

Variations and considerations include case sensitivity, naming conventions, and the existence of equivalent fields such as attached_by_id or attached_by_user. Developers should document the exact semantics in their data models to avoid ambiguity across integrations. See also: attachment, provenance, audit log, metadata.