Glossary
A compact reference of Kristal terms used across the wiki. When a term has a formal definition in the specs, the wiki keeps only the operational meaning.
Artifact
A packaged, distributable unit produced by the Kristal pipeline (e.g., Exchange, Runtime Pack). Artifacts are designed to be verifiable and safe to mirror.
Authority
An entity allowed to seal/attest an artifact for a given scope. Authorities are evaluated against trust roots and scope rules (often via an Authority Registry).
Authority Registry
A pinned, versioned policy artifact that defines trust roots and scope-based acceptance rules for authorities. Used to verify shards and federation roots offline.
Build
A deterministic compilation run producing artifacts. A build records enough inputs, policies, tooling identity, and canonicalization choices to make outputs reproducible.
Canonicalization
A standard way to turn structured data into a consistent byte representation so hashes and signatures are stable across implementations.
Capability
A declared feature of a query runtime (operators, pagination mode, limits, estimates). Clients use capabilities to adapt or fail early.
Claim-IR
An intermediate representation of extracted claims before deterministic resolution. Used as a stable input stage in the pipeline.
Composition Policy
Deterministic rules for composing multiple shards into one federated view (precedence, conflict handling, ordering).
Consumer
Any system or client that retrieves and verifies Kristal artifacts and uses them (query engines, offline tools, serving systems).
Determinism
The property that the same inputs + policies + tooling configuration produce the same canonical outputs and IDs.
Distribution
The mechanism used to publish and retrieve artifacts (stores, mirrors, indexes). Distribution should support offline retrieval and verification.
Exchange
The portable bundle of curated knowledge produced by compilation. It is the core artifact from which runtime packs are built.
Fail-closed
A verification posture where declared integrity requirements (hashes/signatures/evidence) must verify, otherwise the artifact is rejected.
Federation
A composed Kristal view built from multiple shards (often multiple publishers). Federation must be deterministic and verifiable.
Federation Manifest
The manifest describing a federation root: which shards it includes and how they are composed (composition policy + publisher seal).
Identity (ID)
A content-derived identifier for an artifact. If meaningful content changes, the ID changes. If content is the same, the ID should be the same.
Integrity
The set of mechanisms used to detect tampering or mismatch (hashes, signatures, evidence references).
Manifest
A metadata document describing an artifact: what it contains, what inputs/policies produced it, and how to verify it.
Offline-correct
The ability to verify and use artifacts without contacting remote services, relying on declared integrity evidence and pinned policy.
Policy
Recorded parameters that affect outputs (ordering, grouping, membership filters, bitmap strategy). Policies must be explicit for reproducibility.
Profile
A named set of requirements or behaviors layered on top of core (e.g., projection format, validation suite). Profiles enable compatibility and evolution.
Publisher
The party that publishes an artifact to distribution (may also be the authority, or may be distinct in curated federation scenarios).
Query Contract
The agreed interface semantics for querying a runtime pack (capabilities, pagination, operators, constraints).
Resolved Claim-IR
A deterministically resolved form of Claim-IR that removes ambiguity and makes outputs reproducible.
Rollback
Switching activation back to a previously known-good artifact (typically by changing an activation pointer to a previous Runtime Pack ID).
Runtime Pack
A query-optimized package built from an Exchange (indexes, bitmaps, policies) intended for local or service-based querying.
Seal
A signature-based attestation over an artifact or manifest (often used for shard integrity and authority claims).
Shard
A scoped Kristal artifact (e.g., by domain/authority/time window) intended to be composed with other shards.
Shard Manifest
The manifest describing a shard: its scope, inputs, validation evidence, integrity, and authority seal(s).
Trust Root
A pinned anchor for verification (key/cert/DID or equivalent). Trust roots are used to decide which authorities can be accepted.
Validation
Checks applied to artifacts (core rules + profile checks). Validation is typically recorded as Validation Reports.
Validation Report
An artifact recording validation outcomes, references, and integrity information used for auditability and fail-closed verification.