{"slug":"platform/21-business-ontology-foundational-the-largest-remaining-gap","title":"21 — Business Ontology ⭐ (foundational; the largest remaining gap)","section":"platform","sectionLabel":"Platform","status":"unclassified","type":"document","path":"platform/21-business-ontology-foundational-the-largest-remaining-gap.mdx","bytes":5699,"description":null,"updated":null,"source":"integratewise/Integratewise-docs-wiki","content":"\n> **Extracted from:** IntegrateWise Platform Specification Suite\n> **Region:** third_region\n> **Original line:** 2899\n> **Lines:** 112 | **Chars:** 5,417\n> **Status:** Raw extraction — requires review and canonicalization\n\n21 — Business Ontology ⭐ (foundational; the largest remaining gap)\nEvery entity in 02, 12, and every subsystem that touches “things” inherits from this ontology. Without this ontology, the rest of the system has no canonical reference for what a “Person”, “Team”, “Process”, “Objective” actually is.\n\n21.1 Why this is the largest gap\nThe original spec defined tenant_spine_config and the entity graph with concrete entity types (CRMAccount, CRMLead, Opportunity, Ticket, etc.) but no ontological foundation. Two B2B SaaS tenants that both have a “Person” need that to be the same concept, queried the same way, governed the same way. Hence this single document is the canonical thing-everything-else-inherits-from.\n\n21.2 The 16 root concepts\nCopyOrganization — legal entity owning the tenant\nWorkspace — bounded context inside Organization (inherits from 03)\nPerson — first-class human (User is a Person with login)\nTeam — durable grouping of Persons, with role inheritance\nProcess — repeatable set of capabilities used to produce Outcomes\nProject — time-bound container of Activities\nObjective — measurable target a Process or Project exists to advance\nOutcome — observed result, scored against an Objective\nAsset — durable, non-ephemeral object of value (data, doc, code, model)\nKnowledge — distilled truth (SOP, playbook, runbook; sits at L8 of memory)\nDecision — recorded commitment (chair-of-record artifact)\nPolicy — rule that gates Decisions and Actions\nCapability — declared action (inherits from 05)\nSignal — derived observation (inherits from 10)\nMemory — narrative artifact at any of the 8 layers (inherits from 07)\nConversation — Twin ↔ User dialog (inherits from 06)\nTime — canonical timeline reference (inherits from 02 Timeline)\n21.3 Inheritance tree (canonical)\nCopyThing (id, version, lifecycle, provenance, evidence[]) ← base\n├── Organization\n├── Workspace\n├── Agent (23)\n├── Knowledge\n├── Decision\n├── Policy\n└── TimeAnchor\n\nAgentOfActivity (Thing + who/what performed)\n├── Person — has Identities (28)\n└── Agent — has Lifecycle (23)\n\nBoundedContainer (AgentOfActivity + lifecycle scope)\n├── Team — composition of Persons and Agents\n├── Workspace — composition of Things (03)\n└── Project — composition of Activities, has Objective\n\nValueCarrier (Thing + has measurable state)\n├── Asset\n├── Knowledge — value = reusability\n└── Decision — value = commitment weight\n\nProcess (BoundedContainer + repeatable, has Objective)\n├── Process — def + runs[]\n└── Workflow — runnable Process (inherits from 11)\n\nOutcome (ValueCarrier + measured against Objective)\n├── Outcome\n└── Signal — derived from deltas (10)\n\nAction (Thing + executes Capability, gated by Policy)\n├── Capability (inherits from 05)\n└── Conversation — composed of Message Tuples\n└── Memory — meaning-axis (07)\n21.4 Canonical IDs per root concept\nConcept Prefix Notes\nOrganization org* legal entity; one Organization ⇒ one or more Tenants\nWorkspace wsp* inherits from 03\nPerson usr* login-bound Person\nTeam team* inherits from Person and Agent\nProcess proc* template; resolved through Workflows\nProject prj* inherits from Process\nObjective obj* has metric_id, target, range\nOutcome out* measured vs obj*\nAsset ast* sub-typed by kind\nKnowledge knw* inherits from L8 memory\nDecision dec* chair-of-record artifact\nPolicy pol* declarative rule\nCapability cap* inherits from 05\nSignal sig* inherits from 10\nMemory mem* inherits from 07\nConversation conv* inherits from 06\nTime tl* inherits from 02 Timeline\n21.5 Cross-concept reference rules\nA Capability always belongs to ≥ 1 Process.\nAn Objective always references ≥ 1 Process.\nAn Outcome always references ≥ 1 Objective and ≥ 1 Process.\nA Decision always references ≥ 1 Outcome OR ≥ 1 Signal.\nA Policy always references ≥ 1 Capability or Entity type.\nMemory is either Spine-truth, Twin-meaning, or Knowledge (three-axis separation, 07).\n21.6 Responsibilities\nDefine the 16 root concepts and the inheritance tree.\nBind every ID prefix.\nBind every cross-concept reference rule.\nPin the three-axis Memory rule.\nBe the single citation for “what is a Person” in any spec.\n21.7 Inputs\nOnboardingComplete (initial seeding).\nAdmin declarations of new root concepts (rare; extension point).\n21.8 Outputs\nInheritance-validated entity writes (every new ent\\_ must inherit from ≥ 1 root concept).\nSchema version bumps force revalidation.\n21.9 Events produced\nOntologyDefined, ConceptExtensionAdded, ReferenceViolationDetected.\n21.10 Events consumed\nEntityCreated, EntityUpdated, SchemaVersionBumped.\n21.11 APIs\nGET /ontology/concepts, GET /ontology/inheritance/{kind}, POST /ontology/concepts, POST /ontology/validate.\n21.12 State transitions\nOntology itself: draft → ratified → superseded. Every new entity version must include a re-validation pass against the current ratified ontology.\n21.13 Failure handling\nReference violation → reject write, surface explainer referencing 21.5.\nOntology supersession without migration → hard block writes involving supersession path.\n21.14 Extension points\nVendors may add new root concepts (rare, requires Steering Committee review).\nNew sub-types within an existing concept are normal extensions.\n"}