Resolves a named empirical artifact to a locally verified file. A directory
supplied through BIFROST_ARTIFACT_DIR always takes precedence, including
when refresh = TRUE. With no verified cache entry, the first request uses
the manifest and artifact currently tracked on GitHub main. Later calls
reuse the verified cache and work offline; use refresh = TRUE to check
main again. The returned value is a path; this function does not deserialize
the file.
