Knots and bounds

The two fundamental tables of Kastalia's database are knots and bounds.

A knot is a single addressable unit of content: it has a unique knot_id, a knot_name (its path-like, human-readable label), a knot_content (free text, typically light HTML, such as the page you are reading right now), and a set of free-form attributes (an open-ended key-value store -- see the Attributes section of this guide).

A bound connects two knots -- a sub(ject) and an obj(ect) -- through a predicate that names the relation between them (see the Predicates section). Bounds also carry an ord (ordering, used whenever children/items need a stable sequence) and a bound_creator (who asserted the relation).

Everything visible anywhere in Kastalia -- a course, a presentation, a glossary entry, a recording -- is ultimately just some knots and the bounds between them, read out through a template.