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paperspec/spec/18-layers.md
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alexmandClaude ea0a7efa78 feat: zipped packages, target set, checklists, audit fixes and a stress test
Features for the next six months (accessible HTML export, paperpack and
Lode on packages, the personal bundle):

- Zipped packages: the oracle writes and reads `.sct.zip` archives under
  the rules of spec/12 §12.2; validate.py and load.py accept them; a
  byte-identical zip of the tiny package joins the fixtures, and two
  broken archives (traversal, symbolic link) join fixtures/invalid.
- The target set of targeted F3 (spec/08 §8.10) is computed by the
  oracle and pinned by vectors/targets.jsonl under each digit rule; the
  rule now covers cells as well as sentences and the leaves of anchored
  containers, and defines a node's section.
- scienting-checklist/1 (provisional): a conformance check of an export,
  covered by a receipt as ["checklist", id, hash] (spec/08 §8.11), with a
  WCAG 2.1 AA fixture and its receipt.
- QA reports are signed like receipts (spec/08 §8.9).
- A `description` annotation body with role alt or long, so an
  accessible export can find a confirmed figure description; the layer
  fixture carries one, and the store's body-kind constraint allows it.
- scienting-spot-check/1, the seed payload, is registered with a schema.
- exercise, submission and grade are provisional until a course has
  used them.

Audit fixes, each with a vector or a broken package where one was
missing:

- Folder packages: symbolic links are refused on validate and load,
  manifest paths must not collide under case folding, listed files are
  matched by exact name, files are hashed in chunks under a size limit.
- Files are compared byte for byte, so CR LF, a byte order mark, NaN,
  a lone surrogate or invalid UTF-8 is refused instead of translated;
  integers beyond 2^53 are read as doubles, as canonical JSON writes them.
- Receipts: signature.key must equal by and the key must be valid when
  signed; a qa receipt's nodes must be the sample at the original's
  hashes, its scope must name qa.of, its errors must be sampled nodes;
  statuses are computed once, iteratively, so chains of spot-checks
  hundreds deep settle; Base64 and manifest shape errors become refusals
  instead of tracebacks; counts and the fidelity of roster-less packages
  are recomputed.
- The gate enforces rule 11 of spec/11 §11.4: changed nodes are
  validated against the node schema and the references between nodes
  are checked, so a set to a bad value, an insert with unknown
  properties or a delete of a referenced header cell is refused; a
  relabel to null drops the label; a reclassify drops foreign
  attributes; a split strips whitespace across runs; ids.jsonl order
  follows spec/04 §4.4 in every state; a move after itself is refused.
- Anchors: the relabel rule requires that nothing else changed below the
  node; an alias chain ending in a deletion no longer crashes resolve.
- Notation: a script after an empty group applies to the previous atom
  ({}^{14}C); letters are defined by Unicode block in spec/05 §5.4 and
  the oracle; \left) is complex.
- Page fingerprints delete whitespace before folding, so "10 -20" and
  "10-20" fold alike (spec/07 §7.1).
- Grades are summed with exact decimals; the reviewer error bound is
  computed with integer arithmetic.
- receipts and revocations are keyed by (doc_key, id) in SQL, since one
  revocation may be carried by several packages.

Checking:

- tools/stress.py: seeded randomized property tests over canonical JSON,
  normalization, notation, random correction walks, anchor resolution,
  Merkle roots, spot-check samples, error bounds, fingerprints, mutated
  archives and packages, rights and spot-check chains; CI runs it.
- check.py verifies every count and version the prose states against
  the repository, the zipped fixture and crafted archives, the checklist
  coverage, and nine more broken packages.
- CONTRIBUTING.md gains a release checklist.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-14 20:07:22 -04:00

5.1 KiB

18. Layers and annotations

Everything people and models add to a document is an annotation, and annotations are grouped in layers. scienting-layer/1 is the W3C Web Annotation Data Model with the anchor as a selector, so any Web Annotation tool can read it. The JSON-LD context is context/scienting-1.jsonld, published at https://scient.ing/ns/scienting/1.jsonld.

18.1 One rule decides what is a claim and what is a layer

If a statement is true independently of this paper, it belongs in a claim store as a claim, where it is checked and leveled. If it is about reading this paper, it belongs in a layer, where it is attributed and signed but not checked.

18.2 The layer

A layer is a folder with layer.json and annotations.jsonl. layer.json is an AnnotationCollection with the two contexts, format, an id of the form urn:scienting:layer:<store>/<record id>, a label, a purpose, an audience (novice, student, expert or mixed), a visibility (private, team or public), a license (CC BY 4.0 by default when public), its creator, created, its project, the docs it annotates and its total. A reader turns layers on and off, and the audience dial picks the level of glosses.

18.3 The annotation

Each line of annotations.jsonl is a W3C Annotation:

Property Holds
@context ["http://www.w3.org/ns/anno.jsonld", "https://scient.ing/ns/scienting/1.jsonld"].
id urn:scienting:annotation:<store>/<record id> (4.6).
type, layer Annotation, and the layer's ID.
motivation A W3C motivation: commenting, describing, linking, questioning, assessing, replying and the others.
creator, created, modified An agent {id, type, name}, with type Person or Software, and times.
body One body (18.4).
target A SpecificResource whose source is urn:scienting:doc:<store>/<key> and whose selector lists an AnchorSelector holding a scienting-anchor/1, optionally followed by a W3C TextQuoteSelector for tools that do not know ours; or, for a reply, a SpecificResource whose source is another annotation.
status proposed, confirmed, rejected or withdrawn. A model's annotation is proposed until a person confirms it.
receipt For a confirmed annotation, the receipt that covers it.

The TextQuoteSelector, when present, repeats the anchor quote's exact, prefix and suffix, with an empty string for a prefix or suffix the quote lacks. It is present only when the anchor's quote is plain text; an anchor whose quote is hashed or keyed (6.3) has none, so the fallback never shows text the anchor withholds.

An annotation's content hash is SHA-256 of the canonical JSON of the annotation without status, receipt and modified. A confirmed annotation is covered by its confirmer's receipt, which lists ["annotation", <record id>, <content hash>]. Replies are annotations that target annotations, so discussions are threads anchored to sentences.

18.4 Bodies

kind W3C type Adds Says
gloss TextualBody audience An explanation at novice, student or expert level.
claim-link SpecificResource source (lode:<tag>), pin, role That the span states, uses or disputes a claim.
symbol SpecificResource source, pin, symbol That this occurrence of a symbol is a symbol claim.
comment TextualBody A remark, opinion or interpretation.
caveat TextualBody A warning a reader should see.
question TextualBody for A question for a reader, a group or the authors.
exercise TextualBody exercise A task with a key and a rule (19).
citation-context TextualBody reference, verdict, reason Why a sentence cites a reference, and whether it supports it.
prerequisite SpecificResource source What to read or know first.
crosslink SpecificResource source, selector That the span corresponds to a span in another document.
translation TextualBody language The span in another language.
description TextualBody role A description of a figure, panel or table for readers who cannot see it: alt, a short text equivalent, or long, a full description.
generated TextualBody generator Text a model wrote about the span; never mistaken for source.

A textual body has a value, and optionally a format (text/plain or text/markdown) and a language. Nothing a model writes is ever stored as source text. A model may propose a description, and like any annotation it stays proposed until a person confirms it; an accessible export uses confirmed descriptions only, and a figure with none has no description. Other text a model writes about a span, such as a summary, is a generated annotation, which names its generator. fixtures/records/layer/ holds a layer with one annotation of each common kind and the receipt that confirms some of them.