Decision: Memory-native manifests over DVC pipelines for experiment tracking

Angelo › Experiment Infrastructure: Memory Hardening + DVC Artifacts

Type: Decision · Status: active · Created: 2026-06-09

Tags: decision,architecture,dvc,manifests,experiments

Choice: Use DVC purely as a content-addressed blob store (dvc add/push/pull). Build experiment provenance, manifests, and reproduction logic in the memory MCP server (Approach B).

Rejected: DVC pipelines (dvc.yaml / dvc repro) which would impose DVC's stage/pipeline mental model.

Rationale: - Memory tree already tracks experiments with rich metadata (decisions, parent relationships, success/failure) - Manifest is a natural extension of record() - Don't need to learn DVC pipeline DSL - Reproduction logic lives in MCP tools, which agents call directly - DVC stays in its lane as a dumb blob store - Keeps graph lightweight — entries are pointers to manifests, not full provenance inline

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Source: memory entry deci-8e8c064d.