---
profile: entities
outbound:
  entities: [depends-on, required-by, runs-on, hosts, uses, produces, consumes, maintains, owns, authored, alternative-to, implements, part-of, composition, supersedes, derived-from, adapted-from, see-also]
  concepts: [implements, exemplifies, rests-on, applies-when, operates-on, invokes, authored, alternative-to, see-also]
  sources: [evidenced-by, defined-in, see-also]
  comparisons: [compares-with, see-also]
required_by_stack: false
---

# kb/entities/ - Collection Contract

Concrete things that exist: a project, a deployed system, a CLI tool, a technology, a person or
an organization. If it can be pointed at, it is an entity.

**Quality goal:** pointability + currency - a reader should come away knowing what the thing
is, where it actually is, and whether that is still true. An entity page that describes a
system correctly but names no host, path, version or status has not earned its keep.

Inherits [kb/CONTRACT.md](../CONTRACT.md) for the rules the stack enforces - linking mechanics,
provenance, citation, the confidence machinery - and
[kb/CONVENTIONS.md](../CONVENTIONS.md) for what this instance decided: language, naming forms,
tone, relationship labels, the confidence rubric. Neither is restated here.

## Types offered

`entity` (`tools/wikitool types describe entity`). The `entity_type:` field selects the area:

| Area | Holds |
|------|-------|
| `projects/` | Codebases and initiatives, named after their repository or common name |
| `systems/` | Deployed and running systems, given a descriptive name |
| `tools/` | CLI and desktop tools, named as the tool names itself |
| `technologies/` | Protocols, languages, formats, in their standard spelling and capitalization |
| `people/` | People and organizations, by full name or common handle |

These are areas, not collections: they inherit this contract and carry no `COLLECTION.md`.

## Per-area emphasis

- **Projects** - purpose, status, language/stack, owner, repository, dependencies on other
  projects and systems, architectural decisions.
- **Systems** - purpose, components, dependencies, configuration locations, deployment,
  operational status, monitoring.
- **Technologies** - purpose, use cases, trade-offs, version compatibility, which projects and
  systems use it.
- **Tools** - purpose, installation, usage, notable options, which projects use it.
- **People** - role, affiliation, and the projects or decisions they are connected to. Nothing
  personal beyond what the source states.

## Authorised labels

The `outbound:` block above is what `wikitool lint` and `xref add` check: which labels a page in
this collection may use, per destination. The catalogue they are drawn from - and what each one
asserts - is [instructions/link-taxonomy.md](../../instructions/link-taxonomy.md), which binds
nothing on its own.

Operational labels dominate here because an entity's relationships are mostly to other concrete things. `implements` points *out* to a concept; the concept does not point back unless that direction is a statement of its own.

Three of these carry a caveat this area produces more often than the others. `authored` belongs
on a person page pointing at what they made, and it is the label a dead or departed creator
takes - `owns` claims someone answers for the thing *now*. `alternative-to` is self-dual and is
written **once per pair**, never from both ends: a set of interchangeable tools is where a
mirrored clique grows fastest. `derived-from` and `adapted-from` are here for the fork and the
re-implementation - one tool worked up out of another - which is a lineage claim the operational
labels cannot make.

Adding a label here is a deliberate contract change, not a way around a refusal.

## Outbound linking

An entity links to the technologies it uses, the systems it runs on, the projects that depend
on it, and the concepts it implements.

An entity that mentions a concept without linking it is incomplete; the concept page is where
the *why* lives, and the entity page should not restate it.

## What does not belong here

- A pattern, protocol, architecture or decision - those are concepts, even when only one entity
  uses them.
- A page about a source document - that is a `source` page in `kb/sources/`.
- Singular naming is required: `HA Integration.md`, not `HA Integrations.md`.