Appendix — Glossary

Appendix to: AEON Specification v1

This glossary defines core AEON terms. Terms are listed alphabetically. Entries marked (v1 baseline update) were introduced or revised during v1 consolidation.

Annotation Stream (v1 baseline update)

The Annotation Stream is the ordered sequence of structured comment records emitted by AEON Core in parallel to the AES.

• Contains one record per structured comment (doc, annotation, hint, reserved)

• Does NOT affect the AES

• Is emitted in source order

• Records include kind, form, raw content, span, and deterministic target binding

See Appendix: Annotation Stream.

Assignment Event

An Assignment Event is the atomic semantic unit of an AEON document.

• Emitted when a binding assigns a value to a canonical path

• Immutable once emitted

• Unique per canonical path (no duplicates allowed)

Assignment Events are the basis for canonical hashing, schema validation, and reference resolution.

Assignment Event Set (AES)

The Assignment Event Set (AES) is the ordered, canonical output of the AEON compilation pipeline.

• Consists of one immutable Assignment Event per binding

• Preserves lexical source order

• Retains original AST values (no coercion or resolution)

• Produced after all validation phases complete

• Fail-closed: empty if any errors exist

AES is the sole semantic output of AEON Core. See Appendix: Assignment Event Stream (AES).

Binding

A Binding is a key-value assignment: name = value.

Body

The Body of an AEON document is the set of bindings that define its meaning.

• Parsed after headers

• Interpreted through AEON Core structure plus any applicable conventions, schemas, profiles, and consumer policy

• Validated by schemas when validation is applied

• Covered by canonical hashing

The body MUST NOT include integrity material.

Canonical Path

A Canonical Path is the unique, fully-qualified identifier for a value.

In v1, canonical path identity supports two segment kinds:

• member(key) — printed .key

• index(i) — printed [n] (v1)

Examples:

• $.user.name

• $.items[0]

Attribute selectors (for example .@.meta, .@.["a.b"]) are valid in addressing expressions but are not canonical path identity segments.

Consumer

A Consumer is any system that parses, validates, or interprets an AEON document.

Consumers:

• Select conventions, schemas, profiles, and processors by policy

• Decide what processors are allowed

• Define trust boundaries

Documents do not control consumers.

Contract

A Contract is a published, versioned artifact that identifies a trusted profile or schema surface for AEON processing.

Contracts:

• are resolved through trusted registries or allowlists

• do not self-activate from document claims alone

• define stable identifiers such as aeon.gp.profile.v1 and aeon.gp.schema.v1

See AEON v1 Contracts Specification.

Convention

A Convention is a named interpretation agreement layered on top of AEON Core.

Conventions:

• define meaning, context, metadata, or interop labels

• do not change AEON grammar

• are declared by documents but interpreted by downstream consumers

Examples include document metadata conventions, context conventions, temporal conventions, and security conventions.

Conformance Test Suite (CTS)

The Conformance Test Suite (CTS) is the published test surface used to verify claimed AEON conformance.

CTS:

• is organized into named lanes and suite files

• covers normative behavior rather than general hardening

• is the public conformance authority for the v1 line

Stress or hardening workflows may exist separately and are not automatically part of CTS.

Envelope

An Envelope is a top-level object binding typed as :envelope.

• In the baseline GP security model, close:envelope is the recommended conventional spelling

• Appears only at document end when used for GP integrity/signature/encryption conventions

• In the baseline GP security model, contains integrity, signatures, and optional encryption

• Excluded from canonical hashing when selected as the document envelope

• Inert and non-semantic

Guarantee

A Guarantee is an advisory, non-semantic assertion about a value's representation.

Guarantees:

• Are emitted by validators (AEOS or third-party)

• Describe syntactic properties only (e.g., integer-representable)

• Do NOT alter validation outcomes

• MAY be observed by downstream processors

Tier-1 guarantees are normative; Tier-2 guarantees are namespaced and vendor-specific.

Header

A Header is AEON metadata declared in the aeon: namespace.

Headers express:

• Document identity and versioning

• Convention, contract, schema, and profile intent

• Encoding

Headers are inspectable before evaluation and advisory (not authoritative).

Index Segment (v1 baseline update)

An Index Segment is a positional canonical path segment of the form [n] that addresses an element of a list or tuple.

• Zero-based

• Decimal digits only

• No sign prefix

• No leading zeros unless index is 0

Malformed index forms produce invalid_index_format.

Integrity Material

Integrity Material includes:

• Canonical integrity hashes

• Cryptographic signatures

• Optional encryption metadata when a security convention defines it

Exists only to verify document integrity and authenticity.

ListNode (v1 baseline update)

A ListNode is the AES/AST value kind for [...] surface syntax.

• Indicates homogeneous-element intent

• Type constructor: list<T>

Instruction Comment

An Instruction Comment is an advisory comment intended as side-channel guidance for downstream consumers.

Instruction comments:

• may suggest review, update, summarization, routing, or handling intent

• do not alter AEON Core semantics

• are preserved as comment-side context rather than treated as binding data

• may be used by profiles, processors, or direct end consumers subject to trust policy

Instruction comments are non-authoritative by default.

Pattern Profile

The Pattern Profile defines a deterministic DSL for validating StringLiteral values.

Features:

• Predicates: length, contains, starts_with, ends_with, no_whitespace, charset

• Composition: all, any, not

• Structure: split, labels

See Appendix: Pattern Profile.

Profile

A Profile defines a policy bundle for how an AEON document should be processed once selected by trusted consumer policy.

Profiles:

• may enable or forbid processors or optional behaviors

• may set default processing policy such as mode or datatype policy

• do not override the zero-trust rule that consumer selection remains authoritative

Exactly one profile may be active. Profiles are trusted, consumer-selected contract artifacts.

Processor

A Processor is a named downstream behavior or transformation function selected under consumer policy.

Processors:

• Are not defined inside documents

• May be pure or capability-gated

• May be enabled or constrained by profiles, schemas, or other external policy

• Are distinct from conventions, which define interpretation rather than behavior

Processors must be explicitly allowed by the consumer environment.

Schema

A Schema defines acceptability constraints over an AEON document.

Schemas:

• Validate structure and values

• Do not execute logic

• Do not by themselves define business meaning

Schemas constrain; conventions describe meaning; profiles bundle policy.

Schema Profile

The Schema Profile defines the structure of AEON documents used as schemas.

Components:

• rules — binds SANSA path or selector targets to constraints

• patterns — reusable pattern definitions

• charsets — named character sets

See Appendix: Schema Profile.

Semantic Content

Semantic Content is the meaning-bearing portion of an AEON document.

Consists of:

• Assignment Events from the body

• Excluding headers and envelope

Canonical hashing operates over semantic content.

Side Channel

A Side Channel is preserved document material that accompanies AEON Core output without changing the meaning-bearing AES.

Examples include:

• structured comment records in the Annotation Stream

• spans

• advisory instruction comments

Side-channel material may be consumed by validators, processors, or end applications, but it does not alter Core semantic content by itself.

Span

A Span identifies the precise location in source text from which a value originated.

• Format: [start, end] offsets as emitted by AEON Core

• start is inclusive, end is exclusive

• Produced by AEON Core only

• Validators propagate spans unchanged

See Appendix: Spans.

Tonic (v1 baseline update)

A Tonic is the canonical downstream materialization processor that consumes AES and produces a domain-specific runtime representation.

Tonics:

• Receive AES from AEON Core

• Optionally validate against an AEOS schema

• Transform AES into domain objects

Tonics are not AEON Core — they consume AEON output.

See Appendix: Tonic Processor Governance.

TupleLiteral (v1 baseline update)

A TupleLiteral is the AES/AST value kind for (...) surface syntax.

• Indicates positional/arity intent

• Type constructor: tuple<T1..TN>

• Distinct from ListNode

Validator Conformance

Validator Conformance defines requirements for any third-party validation engine consuming AES.

Conformant validators MUST:

• Consume AES as read-only

• Preserve event order

• Not coerce, resolve, or materialize values

• Emit diagnostics with path, span, and phase

See Appendix: Third-Party Validator Conformance.

Document Structure Summary