001The canon model

A system of record for
what you're allowed to say.

The canon is not a wiki and not a brand book. It is structured, machine-readable truth: domains owned by departments, filled with atomic entries, each carrying a lifecycle state, a generation contract, and a named accountable owner.

A figure on an observatory terrace beneath a faint constellation, one star glowing emberTHE RECORD ✦
PLATE IVTruth, kept where agents can find it.
002Anatomy of a canon entry

Atomic, by design.

One claim per entry. Each carries its section type, priority, lifecycle status, content tier, DRI, and review trail — small enough to govern, precise enough to cite.

👤SME Owner🛡️Canon Domain🔒Rule: TLS 1.3📊Fact: API Limit📄Dev Spec🤖Support Bot
Canon Owner
003Content tiers — the generation contract

Status says ready. Tier says how.

The tier is a per-entry contract defining how much latitude an LLM has — and it decides the retrieval path. Tier 1 never touches vector approximation: graph traversal only, reproduced verbatim, validated after generation.

Tier 1
Locked · Verbatim
GRAPH TRAVERSAL ONLY

Returned and used exactly as written. No paraphrasing, no approximation. A paraphrase is a hard conflict.

Tier 2
Structured · Guided
HYBRID RETRIEVAL

Substance and positioning preserved; phrasing adapts to the channel and persona.

Tier 3
Grounded · Flexible
VECTOR RETRIEVAL

Direction and tone consistent with the canon; full phrasing latitude for the model.

004Sub-canons — canons within canons

Global truth, local latitude.

Divisions and product lines nest under parent canons with one of four inheritance relationships — resolved at read time, so a regional team's grounding is always the correct blend of corporate standard and local override.

I

Full Inheritance

Child inherits every parent element, no overrides. The regional site says exactly what HQ says.

II

Selective Override

Child inherits all, but may override specific entries — local pricing, local proof points.

III

Autonomy with Vocabulary Constraints

Child writes its own canon but must conform to the parent's controlled vocabulary — banned terms stay banned.

IV

Complete Autonomy

Fully independent — zero inheritance, zero constraints. A subsidiary with its own brand.

005The vocabulary

Canon Domain

The authoritative system of record for a department, product family, or policy scope. Owned by a named SME.

Canon Entry

An atomic unit of approved truth — a capability fact, legal warning, tagline, or proof point — with status, tier, and DRI.

Binding

A live link from a canon entry to a downstream deliverable. When the source updates, every bound artifact flags for review.

Dependency Edge

A typed graph link between domains or entries — INFORMS, DEPENDS_ON — used to trigger cascade updates.

Provenance

The verifiable trace from any generated output back to the exact entries and source documents that grounded it.

Alignment Score

0–100 measure of how closely any text maps to approved canon — contradictions and gaps included.

Canon Health

Where narrative coherence is breaking down across the graph — the admin's early-warning gauge.

Golden Query Dataset

Per-domain benchmark queries with expected results — retrieval precision measured over time, gating promotion.