Chapter 24 — The Language of the Graph

Chapters 18–23 defined $G$ in mathematics and architecture. This chapter shows the concrete syntax: JSON-LD as the native language of DataObjects — not a dump format bolted on after the fact. Field names track a shipping product lattice; the shapes are illustrative and slightly simplified so a reader can hold an entire miniature organization in one view.

Why JSON-LD

Definition 18.4 said an object is

JSON-LD is how that tuple is written for machines and humans at once:

A document may bundle many objects:

{
  "@context": "https://closureapps.com/ns/context.jsonld",
  "@graph": [ /* objects */ ]
}

The @graph array is a finite piece of $V$. Edges are references by @id. That is $G = (V, E, L)$ in the language the runtime actually stores.

Axiom (concrete). Editing HTML, a slide, or a chat transcript without updating the corresponding object in @graph is exactly the unrepresentable component $F_\perp$ of Chapter 18.

Lean taxonomy

Schemas are themselves names in a finite alphabet $\Sigma$. The lean product lattice groups as follows. (Legacy aliases exist in running systems; prefer the rows marked primary.)

Pillars from Chapter 21 are covers over these families — not separate databases.

Miniature organization (@graph)

The following document is a toy org: one Experience with a home page, a hybrid workflow stub (expanded in Chapter 25), a knowledge chunk, a design system binding, and an event. Identifiers are stable UUIDs for readability in prose.

{
  "@context": {
    "@vocab": "https://closureapps.com/ns#",
    "schema": "https://closureapps.com/ns/schema/",
    "data": "https://closureapps.com/ns#data"
  },
  "@graph": [
    {
      "@id": "urn:uuid:11111111-1111-4111-8111-111111111101",
      "@type": "schema:design_system",
      "name": "Northwind Brand",
      "data": {
        "slug": "northwind",
        "brand": "Northwind",
        "identityStyle": "type",
        "themeIds": ["urn:uuid:11111111-1111-4111-8111-111111111102"]
      }
    },
    {
      "@id": "urn:uuid:11111111-1111-4111-8111-111111111102",
      "@type": "schema:design_theme",
      "name": "Northwind Light",
      "data": {
        "slug": "northwind-light",
        "appearance": "light",
        "tokenSetIds": []
      }
    },
    {
      "@id": "urn:uuid:22222222-2222-4222-8222-222222222201",
      "@type": "schema:component",
      "name": "Home hero",
      "data": {
        "kind": "hero",
        "props": {
          "headline": "Claims that heal themselves",
          "subcopy": "Governed intake, research, and approval — on one graph."
        },
        "children": []
      }
    },
    {
      "@id": "urn:uuid:22222222-2222-4222-8222-222222222202",
      "@type": "schema:page",
      "name": "Home",
      "data": {
        "route": "/",
        "rootComponentId": "urn:uuid:22222222-2222-4222-8222-222222222201",
        "compositionPattern": "stack"
      }
    },
    {
      "@id": "urn:uuid:22222222-2222-4222-8222-222222222200",
      "@type": "schema:experience",
      "name": "Northwind Claims",
      "data": {
        "slug": "northwind-claims",
        "homePath": "/",
        "homePageId": "urn:uuid:22222222-2222-4222-8222-222222222202",
        "pageIds": ["urn:uuid:22222222-2222-4222-8222-222222222202"],
        "theme": {
          "designSystemId": "urn:uuid:11111111-1111-4111-8111-111111111101"
        },
        "workflowRefIds": ["urn:uuid:33333333-3333-4333-8333-333333333301"]
      }
    },
    {
      "@id": "urn:uuid:33333333-3333-4333-8333-333333333301",
      "@type": "schema:workflow_ref",
      "name": "Intake ref",
      "data": {
        "workflowId": "urn:uuid:33333333-3333-4333-8333-333333333300"
      }
    },
    {
      "@id": "urn:uuid:33333333-3333-4333-8333-333333333300",
      "@type": "schema:workflow",
      "name": "Claims intake (hybrid)",
      "data": {
        "workflowId": "wf-northwind-claims",
        "kind": "hybrid",
        "graph": {
          "id": "wf-northwind-claims",
          "entryNodeId": "start",
          "nodes": [],
          "edges": []
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "@id": "urn:uuid:44444444-4444-4444-8444-444444444401",
      "@type": "schema:knowledge_source",
      "name": "Claims playbook",
      "data": {
        "kind": "doctrine",
        "title": "Northwind claims playbook"
      }
    },
    {
      "@id": "urn:uuid:44444444-4444-4444-8444-444444444402",
      "@type": "schema:knowledge_chunk",
      "name": "Triage rule",
      "data": {
        "sourceId": "urn:uuid:44444444-4444-4444-8444-444444444401",
        "text": "Express path when priority is low and payload validates; otherwise full enrich."
      }
    },
    {
      "@id": "urn:uuid:55555555-5555-4555-8555-555555555501",
      "@type": "schema:org_event",
      "name": "Experience published",
      "data": {
        "family": "experience",
        "kind": "experience.published",
        "at": "2026-07-27T12:00:00.000Z",
        "subjectId": "urn:uuid:22222222-2222-4222-8222-222222222200"
      }
    }
  ]
}

Read it as $G$: the experience points at a page; the page points at a component; the experience points at a workflow ref; the ref points at a workflow; knowledge chunks point at sources; the event points at the experience. The empty nodes / edges arrays are filled in Chapter 25 — same object, richer $W$.

Composability in the concrete

Two intents compose when they share identifiers:

• A component @id appearing in children and as rootComponentId is one vertex, not two copies.
• A designSystemId on an experience is an edge into the design family.
• A workflowId shared by a ref and a workflow object is the glue between Experience and Process pillars.

That is the pushout intuition of Definition 20.18, written as JSON references.

The point

JSON-LD is not “how we export the product.” It is how the product is. The next chapter expands the workflow object and walks a run — proposal, integrity, commit, event — in the same language.