# Appendix — Bindings and Identity Canonical topic owners: AEON Specification v1, AEON Core v1 Structure and Syntax Reference, and AEON v1 Addressing, SANSA Literals, and References Reference. If this appendix conflicts with the canonical v1 spec set, the canonical v1 spec set wins. ## 1. Binding as Identity Unit A binding has the form: ```aeon path = value ``` Bindings are the identity unit in AEON. Identity-backed behaviors attach to bindings, not to arbitrary value fragments. ## 2. Why Bindings Matter Bindings provide: - canonical path identity - source ordering - source span anchoring - uniqueness/immutability checks These properties are required for deterministic references, diagnostics, schema matching, and canonicalization. ## 3. References Depend on Bindings References (`~`, `~>`) target bindings via address expressions. A value without binding identity is not a legal reference target. ## 4. Containers and Identity - Object members are bindings and therefore identity-bearing. - List/tuple elements are positional values; they are addressable via index segments but are not independent named bindings. - Attribute metadata is binding-attached and follows the binding target model. ## 5. Node Literals Node literals are values. Node children do not implicitly create top-level named binding identity, but ordered child slots use bracket-index canonical paths such as `$.content[0]`. If a node child contains bindings, those bindings continue below the indexed child path. Valid introducer example: ```aeon content = , { key = 1 })> ``` Identity-bearing bindings in this example include `$.content` and `$.content[2].key`. ## 6. Validation and Diagnostics Schema/validator rules operate on addressable targets derived from bindings and indexed container structure. Diagnostics should report canonical path plus span where available. ## 7. Summary Bindings are the semantic spine of AEON: they anchor identity, determinism, and conformance behavior. --- ## Related documents - [AEON Specification v1](./aeon-core-v1.md) - [AEON v1 Structure Syntax Reference](./aeon-core-v1-structure-syntax.md) - [AEON v1 Addressing, SANSA Literals, and References Reference](./aeon-core-v1-addressing-references.md)