Storage substrate
Type: kb/types/definition.md · Status: current · Tags: learning-theory
Storage substrate is the field that records where retained state persists: repository files, databases, vector stores, prompt registries, configuration services, service objects, audit logs, or model-artifact stores. It determines access, deletion, versioning, rollback, deployment, and latency paths, but it does not by itself say how retained behavior is represented or what force it has.
Scope
Use storage substrate for the operational location of a retained artifact. The same substrate can host many representational forms: a repository can contain prose workflows, symbolic validators, generated prompt views, and pointers to checkpoints; a vector store can contain readable records plus distributed-parametric indexes.
Exclusions
Do not use storage substrate as a replacement for artifact type, form, or authority. "In files", "in a database", and "in memory" are location claims, not architectural classifications of behavioral effect.
Misuse Cases
- Comparing "files versus weights" as a single axis when storage location, representational form, and behavioral authority are changing at once.
- Calling a vector store a memory taxonomy rather than a substrate that may host prose records, dense-vector indexes, and ranking behavior.
Relevant Notes:
- retained artifact - scope: the state whose persistence location is being recorded
- representational form - contrast: how the operative part is encoded and consumed
- lineage - contrast: source dependencies and refresh or invalidation obligations