Blueprint
implicit.ink is built to a small set of laws. They exist so the language stays precise as it grows, and so a real product can always be described without inventing free text. Here they are, in plain terms.
The pool is a language
It is the dictionary and grammar products are written in — not a list of products. A product is a sentence; the pool is the words and the rules.
Two axes, one language
It grows along two co-primary axes through the same gate: the kinds of thing a product can be (a vacuum flask, a laptop), and the things a storefront registers about it (a price, a stock level, a review, a condition). Both are enumerable, and the language enumerates both.
Classification is the heart
A kind exists to say which questions a thing answers. Get the kinds right and everything else follows.
Mint vs. fold — the one decision
A candidate becomes a kind only if it answers a question its parent does not. If it merely gives a different answer to an existing question, it is a value, not a kind.
Fidelity, not coverage
“Done” means a real product can be fully described — every fact it states has a place to go. Covering a checklist is a measure, never the goal.
One question, one home
Each question lives at the most general kind that can answer it, and is inherited downward; a more specific kind may tighten it.
Questions group by concern
Beyond the family tree of kinds, every question belongs to a concern — a facet that cuts across all kinds: identity, measurement, pricing, availability, condition, what buyers say. It is the second way to browse the language.
Three kinds of answer
A token (a word from a vocabulary), a number with a unit, or a literal (a free identifier). Categories are always tokens, never free text.
Some facts travel in bundles
A few questions are not lone values but self-correlating bundles: one sale price carries its own promotion type, validity window, and eligibility; one review carries its own rating, author, and date. The host states the grammar; the bundle keeps the parts together.
Meaning is a code; words are surface
Every concept has a stable identity; the words that name it — synonyms, other languages — point at it. Renaming never breaks anything.
Things can be corrected
A concept can be superseded or retracted; references forward to the replacement. The language fixes its own mistakes without breaking what points at them.
Composition — the storefront axis above — is being actively seeded now, concern by concern, against a breadth-corpus of real commerce schemas. Some other ideas (capabilities, markets, relational slots) remain deliberately deferred: real, but not needed yet. They are recorded, not lost. The full constitution (L0–L16) and its deferred register govern the engine that enforces all of this.