Creating mender artifacts with multiple files in data?

It appears that the mender artifact format as shown here:

does admit multiple files in the data section. However it does not appear that the mender-artifact tool permits specifying multiple files to be added to the data.

Does the mender-artifact tool permit specifying multiple data files somehow or does the user need to create his own means of generating artifacts if this capability is needed?

I doesn’t at the moment, but it will permit it soon, together with the
upcoming update modules in Mender 2.0.0. I can’t give an exact date, but
the beta is right around the corner!