Surface API visuals

These are detailed diagrams for readers who already know the module's words. For the simple version, read the introduction.

One relationship per page, each a still drawing with a short caption and links to the page of the docs and the decision behind it.

1. Resource, structure, shape

   What has identity, storage and operations, what is only ever attached, and what is one named value used at many keys.

2. Who may ask, what may they see

   An operation's permission and its gates decide whether you may ask; the access answers decide, per key, what you may see and change.

3. Layered, then sealed

   Declared, contributed, narrowed, access, sealed: the layers a data surface is built from, and the doors reading the top.

4. The four markers

   enumerated, deferred, refine and live, with portable-check beside: what each promises and what a client does.

5. Six ways to compose

   Attach, variants, mix in, port, collection and keys from the site, one small drawing each.

6. Every door reads one surface

   The form, the tool, MCP, ECA, HTTP and OpenAPI, and React all read one sealed data surface, and what every door keeps.

7. What a key goes through

   Coerce, accept, refine, validate, prepare and commit, with where a computed key is filled and where a dry run stops.

Part of Surface API; see the full explainer.