Type system

Type: kb/types/index.md · Status: seedling · Tags: document-system

Why documents have types, what the type system does, and how structured writing improves quality. Sub-area of document-system.

Overview

why-notes-have-types — seven roles of the type system: navigation hints, metadata enforcement, verifiable structure, local extensibility, content-layer identification, output quality, and maturation through constraining
available types — taxonomy: base types table and shipped collection-local types

types-give-agents-structural-hints-before-opening-documents — navigation: type + description let agents route without loading full documents
type-system-enforces-metadata-that-navigation-depends-on — enforcement: descriptions exist because the note base type requires them; without enforcement, navigation degrades
document-types-should-be-verifiable — verification: types assert structural properties, not subject matter; verification gradient from deterministic to corpus-level
directory-scoped-types-are-cheaper-than-global-types — extensibility: global types tax every session; local types load only when working in that directory
type-loading — current-state: how commonplace splits types across kb/types/ (global) and kb/*/types/ (directory-scoped) today, including WRITING.md inlining and schema lookup

Three independent arguments for why structured document types improve what gets written:

human-writing-structures-transfer-to-llms-because-failure-modes-overlap — failure-mode transfer: LLMs exhibit human-like failures, so structures that prevent those failures in humans prevent them in LLMs too
structure-activates-higher-quality-training-distributions — distribution selection: structured templates steer autoregressive generation toward scientific papers and formal arguments
structured-output-is-easier-for-humans-to-review — reviewability: separated sections let readers check facts and logic independently

process-structure-and-output-structure-are-independent-levers — constraining what reasoning steps must occur (process structure) is independent from constraining result format (output structure); the KB's output quality arguments apply differently to each

claim-notes-should-use-toulmin-derived-sections-for-structured-argument — the structured-claim type: Toulmin-derived Evidence/Reasoning/Caveats sections
wikiwiki-principle-lowest-friction-capture-then-progressive-refinement — the type ladder: zero-friction capture, then progressive refinement as thoughts earn structure

document-system — parent area; type system is one component of the document infrastructure
learning-theory — the type ladder instantiates the constraining gradient for documents