Core Concepts

POOKA defines a small set of fundamental architectural concepts. Together these concepts establish a common language for organizing information, semantics, governance and behavior within Human–AI Information Architecture.

POOKA intentionally limits itself to a small set of Core Concepts. These concepts are not intended to describe every aspect of knowledge or collaboration, but to capture the architectural abstractions considered necessary to describe Human–AI Information Architecture.

The Core Concepts are intentionally heterogeneous: they include persistent structures, relationships, semantic abstractions, behavioral abstractions and architectural constraints. Equal status as a Core Concept does not imply an identical architectural role.

Each concept has a single, well-defined meaning throughout the paper. Implementations may extend these concepts, but should not redefine them.

Source of truth

The definitions below are the canonical glossary entries from references/terminology.md, presented in the order of Chapter 8, which remains authoritative. Each concept links to its section in the paper, where the full definition and its architectural consequences are given.

Ecosystem

The complete architectural environment within which one or more Identities, Actors, Domains, Contexts and Artifacts coexist.

Section 8.1 in the Design Paper

Identity

A persistent person, organization or other identifiable subject within an Ecosystem.

Section 8.2 in the Design Paper

Actor

Any human, AI or technical system capable of performing actions within an Ecosystem.

Section 8.3 in the Design Paper

Delegation

Defines how an Actor may represent an Identity, specifying the scope, permissions, constraints and responsibilities under which the Actor operates.

Section 8.4 in the Design Paper

Domain

A durable and bounded knowledge environment.

Section 8.5 in the Design Paper

Context

The active scope in which information is interpreted.

Section 8.6 in the Design Paper

Artifact

Any addressable unit of information.

Section 8.7 in the Design Paper

Relation

An explicit connection between architectural concepts.

Section 8.8 in the Design Paper

Semantics

The explicit meaning assigned to information.

Section 8.9 in the Design Paper

Behavior

How Actors or AI are expected, permitted or constrained to operate within the architecture.

Section 8.10 in the Design Paper

Boundary

Architectural separation, determining visibility, ownership, accessibility, semantic scope, behavioral scope and the conditions under which information may cross between architectural elements.

Section 8.11 in the Design Paper

Event

Something that occurs at a specific point or period in time and may create, modify or relate Artifacts, influence Context or trigger Behavior.

Section 8.12 in the Design Paper

How the concepts fit together

The Core Concepts form a connected architectural graph, described in section 9.2 and illustrated on the Architectural Model page.

Not every concept changes at the same rate. Section 9.3 distinguishes the relatively persistent concepts (Ecosystem, Identity, Domain, Artifact, Semantics) from the adaptive ones (Context, Delegation, Behavior, Event). That distinction allows architectural stability without reducing operational flexibility.