Artifact Viewer & Editor Roles
Published April 21, 2026 · Last updated April 23, 2026 · 3 min read
Artifact-scoped roles let you share a single artifact with someone without granting them access to the rest of the project. Use them when you need a collaborator to view or edit one specific artifact — and nothing else.
The two roles
| Artifact Viewer | Artifact Editor | |
|---|---|---|
| View the artifact | ✓ | ✓ |
| Edit the artifact | — | ✓ |
| Add comments | ✓ | ✓ |
| Export the artifact | — | ✓ |
| Ask the agent | ✓ | ✓ |
| Create new artifacts | — | — |
| Share the project | — | — |
| Manage project members | — | — |
| Delete artifacts | — | — |
| Manage project settings | — | — |
Both roles are scoped to a specific artifact. A person with Artifact Viewer or Artifact Editor access cannot see other artifacts in the same project and cannot manage membership or settings.
How these differ from project roles
Obvious has two tiers of access: project-level roles and artifact-level roles.
Project roles — Viewer, Editor, Admin, and Owner — grant access to the entire project. Someone with a project role can see all artifacts and (depending on their role) manage members and settings.
Artifact roles — Artifact Viewer and Artifact Editor — grant access to one artifact only. Obvious resolves these at request time: when someone with an artifact role loads a project, they only see the specific artifact they've been granted access to. Everything else stays hidden.
If someone already has a project-level role, you don't need to assign an artifact role. Artifact roles are for people who should have no broader project context.
Note: When someone is invited with an artifact role, Obvious adds them to the workspace as a guest. Guests don't count as full workspace members.
How to assign artifact roles
Artifact roles are currently assigned via the Obvious API. There is no UI in the dashboard for creating artifact-scoped grants — the Share button on an individual artifact opens a link-sharing panel only.
To grant a user Artifact Viewer or Artifact Editor access programmatically, create a grant with resource_type: "artifact", the artifact's ID as resource_id, and the appropriate role (artifact_viewer or artifact_editor). Grants take effect immediately and are cached for up to 60 seconds.
To remove artifact-scoped access, revoke the grant via the API.
The agent and artifact roles
Users with either artifact role can interact with the Obvious agent on the artifact they've been granted access to. The agent can answer questions, run analysis, and assist with edits — scoped to that artifact. It cannot access other artifacts in the project on their behalf.