# INTENT

## Purpose

This repository exists to develop and maintain **InfoTechCanon**: an evolving, markdown-first reference system for building interoperable, adaptable, and extensible information-processing systems.

InfoTechCanon provides a shared semantic foundation for standards, concepts, patterns, profiles, mappings, and assimilation processes used across software, infrastructure, governance, DevSecOps, task management, knowledge systems, and related domains.

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## Primary Utility

InfoTechCanon helps turn **integration by interpretation** into **integration by declared semantic contract**.

It provides:

- canonical concepts with clear ownership,
- orthogonal standards that can import but not redefine each other,
- mappings to external standards, regulations, frameworks, and product models,
- assimilation processes for incorporating new bodies of knowledge,
- reusable pattern-language structures,
- application profiles for concrete implementation contexts,
- retrieval-friendly markdown artifacts for humans, agents, and tools,
- and guidance for making independently developed subsystems easier to connect.

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## Intended Users

This repository is intended for:

- architects designing interoperable information-processing systems,
- standards authors defining reusable domain models,
- repository maintainers declaring semantic boundaries and interfaces,
- developers implementing compatible subsystems,
- agents retrieving structured reference knowledge,
- governance and compliance reviewers mapping internal concepts to external obligations,
- and tool builders working on markdown-based infospaces, knowledge engines, and agentic development workflows.

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## Strategic Role

InfoTechCanon acts as a **semantic operating layer** for a growing ecosystem of repositories, services, agents, and documentation spaces.

It should support projects that need to remain adaptable while still sharing a common vocabulary and integration logic.

The repository is expected to become a reference point for related tools and systems, including markdown infobases, canonical landscape models, task and tagging standards, governance models, access-control models, and subsystem interface declarations.

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## Design Stance

InfoTechCanon is:

- **markdown-first** but machine-readable,
- **network-shaped** rather than purely hierarchical,
- **pattern-oriented** rather than merely taxonomic,
- **externally mappable** without being externally constrained,
- **evolutionary** without becoming arbitrary,
- **orthogonal** without becoming isolated,
- and **practical** enough to guide real subsystem integration.

External standards influence InfoTechCanon through mappings and assimilation. They do not define its internal semantics directly.

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## Core Commitments

InfoTechCanon commits to the following principles:

1. Every canonical concept should have a clear owner.
2. Standards should import concepts instead of redefining them.
3. Mappings to external bodies of knowledge should be explicit, versioned, scoped, and justified.
4. Assimilation should turn new knowledge into gaps, conflicts, mappings, and improvement proposals.
5. Patterns should explain how concepts are combined in recurring practical situations.
6. Profiles should constrain standards for concrete implementation contexts.
7. Canon artifacts should be useful to both humans and agents.
8. Evolution should preserve provenance, compatibility information, and rationale.

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## Non-Goals

This repository does not aim to replace external standards such as ArchiMate, CSDM, ITIL, PMBOK, NIST, YANG, SPDX, CycloneDX, or similar bodies of knowledge.

It also does not aim to define one mandatory enterprise data model that every system must fully implement.

Instead, InfoTechCanon provides a coherent internal reference system that can map to external standards, assimilate useful knowledge from them, and support practical interoperability across independently evolving systems.

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## Direction of Travel

The repository should initially establish:

- `InfoTechCanonCore`,
- a refactored `InfoTechCanonLandscapeModel`,
- early organization and governance model extraction points,
- a mapping model,
- an assimilation model,
- a pattern format,
- a profile format,
- retrieval conventions,
- and example subsystem interface declarations.

Over time, the repository should grow into a living canon that supports human reasoning, agentic workflows, validation, documentation generation, knowledge retrieval, and practical system integration.