Prune publishing subsystem — COMPLETED (v0.2.1)

Tags contributor architecture

Status: Completed / superseded. Do not act on the original proposal.

This proposal targeted an older generic publishing layer (the ArtifactManager — artifacts.py, config.py, permalink.py, publisher.py) whose coupling analysis found no active consumers. That layer was pruned in v0.2.1 (commit 0182c955, 2026-04-27): the four files above were deleted, and the same commit introduced a new, different subsystem at the same package path — the schema-v2 result-bundle publisher (benchbox/core/publishing/bundle_publisher.py, store.py).

benchbox/core/publishing/ today is live, CLI-integrated code, not dead code: it backs the registered benchbox publish command (benchbox/cli/commands/__init__.py) and benchbox run --publish, and is covered by tests/unit/core/publishing/ and tests/integration/test_publish_cli.py. Do not delete it.

History

The original future-state analysis (below, for the record) concluded that the generic artifact/permalink layer had no active supported use and should be pruned rather than extracted. That conclusion was correct for the code as it existed then, and the prune was executed in v0.2.1. Because a new bundle-publish subsystem was subsequently built at the same path, this proposal is retained only as a completed record.

The original “unused generic layer, safe to remove” framing describes code that no longer exists; nothing currently under benchbox/core/publishing/ is removable dead code.

Original proposal (historical)

The original generic layer was to end in one of two explicit states: extract a reusable artifactlinks library if the audit showed real reuse potential, or delete the subsystem if it showed no active supported use. The audit found zero consumers (no CLI integration, no runtime imports, no result-export coupling), so deletion was selected. benchbox/core/results/exporter.py was and remains independent and unaffected.