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A relationship connects two entities. An attribute connects an entity to a literal value. Both are claims with a predicate, status, confidence, evidence, and an optional validity window. In the running example: Use the relationship when the object has an identity of its own. Use the attribute when the object is a value you want to read or compare.

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Relationships

The canonical entity-to-entity record is named Rel in Rust and rel in storage. Its essential fields are subject, object, and rel_type. A relationship is directed: Mara works_at Northstar Labs does not mean Northstar Labs works_at Mara. Query incoming edges when starting from the organization, or outgoing edges when starting from the person. Do not create an inverse claim merely to support reverse traversal. rel_type holds the canonical predicate. Predicate semantics determine whether two objects can coexist and how temporal changes should be handled.

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Attributes

An Attribute uses subject, attr_type, and a typed value. The serialized value has a type tag:
The serialized DateTime variant uses date_time. A date-shaped string tagged string remains a string claim; it does not gain date semantics from its appearance.

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A committed claim can still be a candidate

Artifact commit persists canonical graph records. Truth maintenance then evaluates supported claims for current answers. These are separate milestones. Extraction promotion creates candidate relationships and attributes. Do not interpret a successful ingest response, a stored row, or a high confidence score as equivalent to an approved current answer. Read the relevant truth slot when your application needs that answer.

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Validity windows

A validity window describes when the claim applies in the world. It is separate from when Meerkat Recall stored the row. The interval includes its start and excludes its end. For example, a claim ending at 2026-06-01T00:00:00Z no longer applies at that instant. An absent end means no end is recorded; it is not independent proof that the claim is still true today. Truth maintenance can close a superseded claim’s window. Corroborating a claim with another source adds support without inventing an end date.

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Evidence and confidence

evidence is a list of EvidenceRef values, each pointing to an assertion and an immutable source span. The reference also stores the time_basis and time_value used for recency: source event time, observation time, or assertion time. Several documents can support the same value. Truth maintenance can merge that evidence into one winning claim. A competing value remains inspectable through the conflict and its evidence, even when another value is selected. Direct graph-write surfaces can create records without extracted document spans. If your application needs documentary provenance, ingest the source or supply real evidence through the supported contract; do not manufacture a citation for a manual claim.

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Next steps