Glossary
Activation
Making a specific Runtime Pack the currently active pack for a target scope (environment/channel/cohort), typically as an atomic switch.
Artifact
A versioned, typed output that crosses a component boundary (inputs/outputs/results/evidence). Artifacts are used to make runs reproducible and auditable.
Audit trail
The recorded evidence showing what ran, what was produced, what was released, where it went, and why decisions were made.
Blueprint
An auditable plan for a run that declares required inputs, gates, determinism constraints, and rollback expectations.
Build
A completed pipeline run that produced eligible outputs (e.g., a Runtime Pack) and recorded evidence about inputs, policies, gates, and results.
Canonical truth
The system’s authoritative, compiled knowledge state. It exists only after deterministic validation and compilation.
Channel
A named release lane (e.g., canary/stable/lts) that defines rollout behavior and guardrails.
Claim
A proposed statement about the world (an assertion) produced by extraction, before validation/compilation.
Claim-IR
A structured representation of claims intended for validation/compilation. Pre-truth.
Cohort
A subset of a channel (by tenant group, region, rollout percentage, etc.) used to ramp exposure gradually.
Compile / Compilation
Transforming validated knowledge into canonical truth artifacts and derived runtime artifacts (e.g., Runtime Packs).
Conformance
Meeting the required integration and safety expectations (e.g., pinned dependencies, schema validation, fail-closed behavior, determinism).
Determinism
The property that the same pinned inputs, policies, and configuration produce the same outputs (or canonically identical outputs).
Distribution
Making a Runtime Pack available to runtime systems (fetch/cache) without implying activation.
Exchange
A standardized bundle of artifacts used to move validated/compiled knowledge across boundaries (as defined by Kristal).
Fail-closed
If a required check cannot be completed or fails, the system must not proceed (e.g., no activation without verification).
Feedback
Signals or observations produced downstream (runtime/rendering/execution) that are turned into new governed work, not direct truth mutation.
Gate
A pass/fail checkpoint that must succeed before moving to the next stage (e.g., validation gate, verification gate).
Ingest
Capturing inputs as immutable, provenance-linked snapshots so they can be audited and replayed.
Integrity check
Verification that an artifact/pack is unmodified and complete (e.g., hash/signature/manifest checks).
Kristal
The truth compilation subsystem and the normative source for Kristal artifact contracts (schemas/canonicalization/signing rules).
Konnaxion
The distribution/runtime platform that fetches/caches packs, verifies them fail-closed, activates atomically, and supports deterministic rollback.
Last-known-good (LKG)
A known safe pack/version that can be selected deterministically as a rollback target.
Mandate Bundle
The governance and policy context used to run and release safely (rules, constraints, approvals, and references).
Malkuth
The runtime environment that serves queries and execution over the currently active pack in a safe, repeatable way.
Node
A named component with a clear responsibility and defined artifact boundaries.
Orgo
The control plane: orchestrates stage ordering, enforces gates, records operational evidence, and drives releases.
Pack / Runtime Pack
A portable, offline-capable bundle of compiled knowledge and required runtime metadata used by runtime systems.
Pinning / Version pinning
Locking dependencies, policies, or packs to a specific version/reference to prevent “floating latest” behavior.
Policy
The rules and constraints that govern what is allowed (validation requirements, rollout rules, downgrade prevention, logging/redaction, etc.).
Provenance
The recorded origin and lineage of inputs and outputs (what source data was used, how it was processed, and by which versions).
Renderer
A component that produces user-facing outputs deterministically from the active pack and must not introduce new facts.
Resolution
The process of mapping ambiguous surfaces to explicit identifiers and normalized literals, preserving ambiguity explicitly when unresolved.
Resolved Claim-IR
Claim-IR after resolution: explicit identifiers/normalized literals plus explicit ambiguity and diagnostics as needed.
Release
The operational act of distributing and activating a specific Runtime Pack in target environments/channels/cohorts.
Rollback
Restoring a previous pack/version (typically LKG or pinned prior) via a controlled, atomic activation when a release fails or regresses.
Schema
A formal contract describing artifact structure and validation requirements.
Stage spine
The end-to-end lifecycle of stages from ingest through feedback, used as the shared mental model for the system.
Telemetry
Operational signals emitted by components (metrics/logs/traces/events) used for monitoring, debugging, and audit support.
Tenant isolation
Ensuring one tenant’s data, behavior, and failures cannot affect another tenant.
Trace
A record linking a user-facing output back to the canonical sources/artifacts it was derived from (for transparency and auditability).
Validate / Validation
Deterministic acceptance/rejection of resolved claims against rules and constraints, producing a validation report.
Verification
Runtime-side checks (integrity/compatibility/policy) that must pass before activation is allowed.