Core Concepts

Carry organizes data using a small set of composable primitives. Understanding these will help you make sense of everything else in the documentation.

The Data Model at a Glance

Claim           The atomic unit: "the X of Y is Z"
  Entity        Anything with an identity (a DID)
  Relation      What kind of association: domain/name
  Value         The data: text, numbers, booleans, references to other entities

Domain          A namespace that groups related relations
Attribute       A relation with type and cardinality constraints
Concept         A reusable schema: a named group of attributes
Rule            Logic that derives new concepts from existing data

Everything in Carry reduces to claims. Schemas, concepts, and rules are themselves stored as claims. The system is self-describing.

How the Pieces Fit Together

1. You assert claims – like “the name of Alice is Alice” – into a domain like com.app.person.

2. When patterns emerge, you define attributes that refine relations with types (Text, UnsignedInteger, etc.) and cardinality (one or many).

3. You compose attributes into concepts – named schemas like “person” that group related attributes together.

4. You write rules that derive new concept instances from existing data, like “a safe meal is one where no attendee has an allergy to any ingredient.”

5. All of this lives in a .carry/ repository with its own cryptographic identity.

Each of these is explained in its own section:

• Claims and Entities
• Domains
• Asserted Notation