# Glossary

## Accountable Record

A record structure intended to remain inspectable, verifiable, and
usable across disagreement, reinterpretation, and time.

## Accountable Record-compatible repository

A repository that declares enough structure for the verifier to inspect its
identity, contract context, source materials, verifiable elements,
catalog, exports, resolution state, generated artifacts, and documentation.

## Diagnostic

A structured validation finding emitted by the verifier.
A diagnostic has an owner, concern, name, severity, message, and optional location.

## Pipeline run context

The fixed input for one verifier run.
The context includes the target repository root and run options such as strict mode.

## Pipeline state

The immutable accumulated state produced as the verifier runs.
Each stage receives a `PipelineState` and returns
a new `PipelineState` containing accumulated diagnostics and
any artifact produced by that stage.

## Stage

A numbered pipeline concern, such as identity, contract, sources,
elements, catalog, exports, resolution, generated artifacts, or docs.

Stages run in increasing order.

## Stage transform

A function with the shape:

```python
Callable[[PipelineState], PipelineState]
```

A stage transform reads the current pipeline state,
performs its validation or construction work, and
returns the updated state.

## Target repository

The repository being validated.
By default, the target repository is the current working directory.
A different target may be supplied with `--target`.

## `SE_MANIFEST.toml`

The target repository's repository declaration.
For identity validation, `SE_MANIFEST.toml` is
authoritative for repository identity.

## `CITATION.cff`

The citation metadata file.

When a repository has contract or publication version metadata,
`CITATION.cff` is authoritative for that version.
