Canonical concept · WikiSure
Meaning Resolution
The runtime act of looking up a term and returning its canonical definition for the current namespace.
Definition
Meaning Resolution is the runtime act of looking up a term and returning its canonical definition for the current namespace. It is to semantic governance what DNS is to network addressing: a fast, deterministic, observable lookup that turns a name into the correct, current authoritative answer.
Business context
Resolution must be runtime, not design time. If the canonical definition changes after an agent is deployed, the agent's next resolution must reflect the new definition — without a redeploy. Anything less leaves stale meaning in production.
Insurance example
A claims agent processing a new submission resolves 'reportable event' against the WikiSure registry for the policy's effective namespace. The resolution returns the canonical definition, the version, and the owner — all logged with the decision for audit.
Governance example
Every resolution emits a `MeaningResolved` event. Anomalies (a term that should be canonical but isn't, a resolution against a stale version, a namespace mismatch) become operational signals that governance teams can act on.
Related concepts
Frequently asked
- What if no canonical definition exists for a term?
- Resolution returns 'no canonical definition' and the resolving agent should escalate rather than guess. Silently inventing a definition is the failure mode semantic governance exists to prevent.