Lifecycle

The session shape that turns scattered terminal operations into a reversible, inspectable operator workflow.

The scan command is rarely the whole problem. The harder parts are the state around it: what identity was present before the session, where the output went, what remains to review, and whether the environment was actually restored.

Operator Pipeline treats those seams as first-class work.

The public workflow

1. Capture a baseline.
2. Prepare temporary conductor posture.
3. Prepare or verify temporary collector posture.
4. Run collector-side discovery.
5. Preserve the generated collection artifacts.
6. Restore the collector.
7. Restore the conductor.
8. Record the completed session.
9. Prepare a fresh baseline for the next engagement.

The sequence is not a claim that every engagement is identical. It is a recovery shape: mutation has a baseline, observation leaves an artifact, and closure requires restoration rather than wishful thinking.

Durable state, not terminal memory

An operator should not have to reconstruct the past before deciding what to do next. The workbench records enough session state to answer a small set of practical questions:

• What has already become durable?
• What restoration obligation remains?
• What is the next safe action?
• What can wait until review?

This is why the workbench is more than a launcher for helper scripts. Helpers perform focused work. The workbench provides the order, context, and recovery surface around them.

Evidence boundary

The lifecycle has been exercised in a separate private working environment. The public repository exposes only a sanitized foundation and does not include the source environment, its artifacts, or its identifying topology. See Scope and Evidence for the exact public boundary.