Syntax reference — the complete .dli rendering grammar

This sheet documents the .dli text surface for writing and reading lore. The default build includes its parser and formatter, so people can check, format, import, and query .dli documents. Agents use the author.* tools (authoring-loop.md). Stored fact objects and their JCS serialization remain the canonical form; author.materialize returns committed objects by default and can also return .dli rendering on request.

The syntax implementation lives in crates/dli-syntax. Builds made with --no-default-features omit the text parser and formatter.

Retired keywords and line forms are refused with a message naming their successor.

1. The frame

2. Provenance (trails every claim-bearing line)

<claim>   proposed [origin-token]
<claim>   proposed-bundle "scope#number"
<claim>   decided d-NNNN [d-NNNN…]
<claim>   ratified d-NNNN
<claim>   provisional d-NNNN
<claim>   … assumes <hyp-or-option>

• A claim with no marker parses but warns (origin-missing) and is fail-closed at load (support = FALSE — it can never be Certain).
• proposed needs no citation; decided/ratified/provisional without a d-ref is a diagnostic and fails closed.
• One marker per line; extras diagnose (conflicting-markers).
• assumes conjoins a hypothesis/option condition onto the claim’s support.
• ratify d-1 { h-name := true } currently settles language-name hypotheses only. If a world claim also assumes that hypothesis, check reports an error; cite a decision on the world claim instead.
• proposed-bundle "scope#number" preserves an anonymous proposal’s exact identity on text replay; the scope may be empty for scope-less source. It cannot be combined with origin tokens, or assumes.

3. Keyword inventory by family

World structure

functional states a constraint, not a fact — it lowers to no atom, and there is nothing to query. What it changes is the check: two distinct certain values for one subject of a declared predicate raise continuity.fd-violation. Undeclared, single-valuedness is inferred from canon’s own precedent, which cannot judge a first-seen predicate — the declaration is how an author settles that case.

functional ruler-of              ratified d-0146

ruler-of(camelot, arthur)        ratified d-0146

Questions, forks, hypotheses

Question bodies contain options only. Fork bodies may also retain fork commands such as suppose and add fact; a malformed line beginning with option is still an error. option ... assumes is a killed form: hypothesis gating belongs on the provenance of the claim being gated, for example <claim> proposed assumes <hypothesis>.

Rules and principles

Time

Practice (magic-system workbench, expert tier)

practice <id> [marker] { … } — interior keywords, one per line: use, kind, role (role <id> : <kind> requires <conds>), resource (resource <id> : linear conserved | affine bounded <n> | graded monotone <dir>), rule (… :- <clauses>), condition, error (error <id> refines L1–L7 <discriminant> [where …]), effect, cost.

proof <id> speaker <who> in <practice> { … } — interior: premise <id> <atom> cited d-NNNN [cue "…"], step <id> instantiate <rule> with <bindings>, spend <premise>, close <atom> expect holds|fails-at <error>.

Language layer

Records of process

4. Stored form

Declarations carry structured data into the lorestore. The parser reads the text into that structure; tools can then inspect rules, practices, proofs, and other declarations without treating their bodies as arbitrary text.

5. Not rendered yet

Episodes (production order, scenes, and knowledge deltas) have no .dli line form on this sheet.

6. Where to look deeper

• docs/cards/authoring-loop.md — how lore is actually added: the tool calls, the fact objects, the commit.
• docs/cards/gentle-card.md — the teaching subset (what a writer meets first).
• docs/cards/expert-card.md — the expert tier, its tool calls and its stored form.
• docs/spec/01-syntax.md — normativity, the record shape, the interface, drift discipline.
• schemas/lorestore/fact-object-v1.json — the canonical stored form this grammar renders.
• schemas/ast/document.schema.json — the AST the parser produces from a rendering.
• examples/*.dli — the living corpus (all gate-parsed).