Programatically link RAM artifacts to project

You can bring in artifacts from RAM by right clicking on an artifact within an asset in the Asset Management perspective and selecting "Link artifact to project." However, I'm looking to make the process a little more efficient for reuse by other developers by doing so programatically. It looks like two files are in play here: rambuildercontrol.xml and a .asset file. If the code for the artifacts is added to these files, it does not look like RTC will download/update the artifact from RAM. What is the best way to programmatically link to and download/update artifacts from RAM into RTC?