Glossary

Each term is defined once, in the series’ single source of truth, and every gls link in every chapter lands on the entry below that owns it.

Ranke-Graph

claim

A node together with its content and its edges; the atom of the Ranke-Graph, created in one atomic transaction and addressed by its id. (foundation paper §Claims)

serialized claim

$𝑆\left(𝑣\right)$, a claim as canonical bytes: the node’s fields with every owned edge inline. It is the payload an envelope carries, and the form a read returns where verification is not the point. (foundation paper §Primitives)

envelope

$\text{env}\left(𝑣\right)$, a claim as it is stored: the serialized claim paired with the signature over it. The archive holds it under its id, which is the hash of these bytes, so the signature it carries cannot be detached from the claim it attests. (foundation paper §Primitives)

node

The record carrying a claim’s fields — type, encoding, created_at, height, content, edges. (foundation paper §Nodes)

edge

A typed link from the claim that owns it to the claim it references. (foundation paper §Edges)

reference

The claim an edge points at — the target of provenance traversal. (foundation paper §Edges)

contributor

The actor — human, program, or agent — whose work brings a claim into the graph. Operationally distinct from an entity. (foundation paper §Taxonomy)

source

Node class source/*: an external data artifact captured into the graph. (foundation paper §Type Vocabulary)

derivation

Node and edge class derivation/*: a claim built from other claims, and the provenance edges citing them. (foundation paper §Type Vocabulary)

entity

Node class entity/*: an identifiable thing in the world. (foundation paper §Taxonomy)

relation

Node class relation/*: an assertion about how entities relate, held as a claim of its own so it carries an author, provenance, and a direction the semantic reading may invert. Its relation_direction edges bind the entities. Reification applies to this class; an edge of any other class relates the two claims it runs between and stands as an edge. (foundation paper §Relations)

Ranke-Graph

A Merkle DAG of attributed claims; the provenance-first data structure the series is built on. (foundation paper §Ranke-Graph)

Universe

$\mathrm{𝒰︀}$, a content-addressed set containing envelopes (each under its id $𝑘$, $\mathrm{𝒰︀}\left(𝑘\right)$) and externalised content (each under its hash $ℎ$, $\mathrm{𝒰︀}\left(ℎ\right)$). Both keys are hashes over the bytes they name, so one keyspace serves both and identical bytes are one entry. Any Ranke-Graph is a subset; other archives may share $\mathrm{𝒰︀}$ unseen. Monotone: entries accumulate, never change. (foundation paper §Universe)

Ranke-Graph instance

${\text{RG}}_{𝑘}≔\text{closure}\left(𝑘,\mathrm{𝒰︀}\right)$, the subset of the Universe reachable from a head id $𝑘$. (foundation paper §Universe, §Closures)

closure

The transitive set of claims reachable from a claim by following its edges to their references. (foundation paper §Closures)

initial claim

A claim with no references; a root at which provenance traversal terminates. (foundation paper §Ranke-Graph)

id

$id\left(𝑣\right)=𝐻\left(𝑆\left(\text{env}\left(𝑣\right)\right)\right)$: a claim’s content address, the hash of the envelope the archive stores; written $𝑘$ where a bare id is needed. Recomputing it takes the stored bytes and $𝐻$, while the signature those bytes carry establishes authorship. (foundation paper §Primitives)

height

A mandatory node field: $\text{height}\left(𝑣\right)=max\left(\left\{\text{height}\left(𝑢\right)+1:𝑢\in \text{refs}\left(𝑣\right)\right\}\cup \left\{0\right\}\right)$, the longest path from the claim following references, an initial claim carrying 0. Determined by the claim’s id, strictly rising along every reference, so a set bounded by height is closed under references. (foundation paper §Nodes)

type

A node’s or an edge’s type: a class from a fixed set together with an open subtype, e.g. source/conversation. (foundation paper §Nodes, §Type Vocabulary)

class

The fixed, closed part of a type — one of source, derivation, entity, relation, contribution. (foundation paper §Type Vocabulary)

subtype

The open-vocabulary part of a type, defined by applications without changing the ADT. (foundation paper §Open-Ended Vocabulary)

contribution/*

Node and edge class for claims about contributors and their actions on the graph — contributor, head, branches, branch, diff, delete, expiry. (foundation paper §Type Vocabulary)

branch

A name resolving to a closure, anchored by a contribution/head claim. (foundation paper §Branches)

branch table

A contribution/branches claim indexing the archive’s branches — each edge names one branch and references its head — chained to its predecessor as provenance. (foundation paper §Branches)

branch-table chain

The chain of branch tables from an archive’s current head back to the initial empty table, each holding its predecessor in provenance, so it carries every state the archive has held. Called the spine colloquially, and in the reference implementation. Distinct from the Sequencer’s head history, which is the sequence of branch-table ids it keeps outside the graph. (foundation paper §Branches, §Ranke-Archive)

Ranke-Archive

${\text{RA}}_{𝑘}$, a Ranke-Graph whose head $\mathrm{𝒰︀}\left(𝑘\right)$ is a branch-table claim; the tuple $\left(\mathrm{𝒰︀},𝑘\right)$ of the Universe and a head id. Adding yields a new tuple $\left({\mathrm{𝒰︀}}^{\prime },{𝑘}^{\prime }\right)$ — nothing is mutated. (foundation paper §Ranke-Archive)

head index

The second address scheme ${id}_{\text{seq}\left(𝑖,𝑠\right)}≔𝐻\left(𝑖,𝑠\right)$, keyed on a history seed $𝑠$, naming the contribution/history claim recorded at step $𝑖$ — computable without already knowing the archive’s current head. (foundation paper §Head Index)

history seed

An arbitrary value $𝑠$ chosen once, when a history begins, with no meaning beyond avoiding collision with another history’s seed; the second input to head index’s ${id}_{\text{seq}\left(𝑖,𝑠\right)}$. (foundation paper §Head Index)

consolidating head

A contribution/head claim with edges to every open head, gathering them into a single head. (foundation paper §Consolidation)

valid

Structural correctness — id recomputes, references resolve, the construction rules hold. A technical property, not a judgement on content. (foundation paper §Validity)

verify

The verification of a graph’s validity: recompute each id $=\text{Sign}\left(𝐻\left(𝑆\left(𝑣\right)\right)\right)$ and confirm the construction rules hold — integrity and authenticity checked in one pass. (foundation paper §Verifiability)

anchoring

Witnessing a head externally — e.g. an RFC 3161 authority — to fix its closure in time. The word is reserved for this external sense. (foundation paper §Anchoring)

RankeDB

RankeDB

The reference database service that serves and manages Ranke-Graphs over interchangeable, content-addressed backends.

Sequencer

RankeDB’s mechanism for maintaining a Ranke-Archive’s head under concurrent contributions: it verifies, persists, then advances the head id $𝑘$. (§Sequencer)

base

The fixed point a contribution is opened against: the current archive (head id $𝑘$) and the stamped time $𝑡$, written $\left(𝑘,𝑡\right)$. (§Sequencer)

contribution

A set of claims added to the archive in one transaction, all of them or none — opened against a base, verified and sealed, then merged as a unit. Distinct from the contribution/* node and edge class of the foundation paper. (§Sequencer)

frontier

The set of claims a path step starts from. The first frontier is the anchor claim, or every claim in the closure when the path is unanchored; each step’s yield is the next step’s frontier. (§Filtered Reads)

limiting claim

A claim restricting use of another — a deletion (contribution/delete) or an early key-expiry (contribution/expiry). Minted only by the Sequencer and propagated across branches. (§Cross Branch Propagation)

blob store

A content-addressed byte store with get / put / has; the ground any RankeDB Universe rests on. (§Blob Store)

stamp

Fixing a contribution’s reference time $𝑡$, so every contributed claim satisfies created_at $\le 𝑡$. (§Sequencer)

seal

Closing a contribution so its verified contents admit no further addition or removal; by immutability, what was valid at the base stays valid however long it waits before merging. (§Sequencer)