Snapshot

Type: kb/types/type-spec.md

Authoring Instructions

Use snapshot for captured external source copies stored under kb/sources/.

A snapshot is stamped by capture tooling or a snapshot skill. It is not normally authored directly. The artifact should preserve the source content and capture metadata without analysis; analysis belongs in an adjacent ingest-report.

Metadata

• Set type: snapshot.
• Set source to the canonical URL of the original source.
• Set captured to the capture date or datetime.
• Set capture to the capture mechanism, such as web-fetch, pdf-read, xdk, or gh-api.
• Set genre to the source's genre (see Genre below). This is the single authoritative genre record for the source; ingest reports read it and do not restate it.
• tags are optional topical tags. Do not put the content family in tags — genre carries it, and the platform or container is already visible from capture and the source URL.
• Keep platform-specific metadata such as status_id, conversation_id, post_count, or api_url when the capture tool provides it.

Genre

Classify what kind of document the source is as evidence. The default vocabulary:

• scientific-paper for peer-reviewed papers or preprints with methodology, data, or citations.
• practitioner-report for reports from someone who built something and describes what worked or failed.
• conceptual-essay for framings, analogies, or theoretical positions.
• design-proposal for RFCs, API designs, or architecture proposals for a specific system.
• tool-announcement for new tool, library, or framework releases.
• github-issue for bug reports, feature requests, or PRs from a specific repo.
• conversation-thread for discussion without a single authorial thesis.
• code-repository for a repository whose implementation, structure, documentation, or project history is the source.
• court-opinion for judicial rulings, orders, or opinions issued by a court.
• news-article for journalistic reporting on current events from a news outlet.
• official-statement for a statement, release, or announcement issued by an organization, agency, or public figure in an official capacity.

The vocabulary is open: a value outside this list validates with a warning, not a failure. Extend deliberately — a new genre should name an evidential kind that recurs, not a one-off container. Genre meanings are fixed everywhere; collections and installed KBs extend the value list, never reinterpret existing values.

Two extension paths:

• Occasional off-list source: just use the new value and keep the warning — it is the standing signal of an undocumented genre, and a validation sweep lists every such extension.
• A KB whose sources need their own vocabulary (recurring new genres, domain-specific lens guidance, extra capture fields): do not edit this shipped spec. Declare a collection-local snapshot type — drop a type-spec doc and schema into the sources collection's types/ directory and point COLLECTION.md's Types menu at it; the capture skill stamps whatever snapshot type that menu declares. The local type owns its genre list and lenses outright, with fixed meanings, the same way this spec owns the defaults. Types are the extension point; scaffolded specs are not editing surfaces.

genre is stamped at capture as a surface judgment. If ingestion's closer reading disagrees, correct the snapshot's genre in place — the snapshot stays the single ground truth.

Boundaries

• Do not add commentary, claims, or relevance analysis to the snapshot. The single genre classification is capture metadata, not analysis.
• Do not use source-family labels as type: values.
• Do not create a template for snapshots unless direct human authoring becomes a real workflow.