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The catalog classifies canonical evidence without changing that evidence. Its declarations are ordinary semantic blocks, so they are content-addressed, versioned, published and verified with the brain rather than living in a sidecar database. There are four declarations:
  • a scheme names one classification axis; an exclusive scheme permits one direct class per source;
  • a class is a label inside a scheme;
  • a hierarchy makes one class broader than another;
  • a placement assigns a canonical block to one or more classes.
Class references always take the unambiguous form scheme/label.

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Apply a manifest

A committed manifest is the reproducible path for a non-trivial catalog. For example:
Validate the entire document before writing, then apply it atomically:
A validation failure writes nothing. Applying the same declarations again is idempotent. The shorter catalog scheme, catalog class and catalog place commands create the same declaration blocks and are useful while exploring. The bare vitruvio catalog command renders a folder tree: schemes, nested classes, directly placed canonical sources and an unclassified folder. Source leaves include the recorded creator and whether that identity is cryptographically verified. Use --json to give an LLM the same hierarchy as structured data, including stable block ids and effective memberships; catalog show remains the flat declaration-oriented view.

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Browse and query

browse resolves descendants, so browsing a broad class includes sources placed in narrower classes. Repeating a class intersects the selected source sets:
The planner treats classes as filters, not ranking hints. A result outside the selected classes is inadmissible even when a lexical or vector index ranks it highly. catalog path is only a virtual navigation view over ordered schemes; it creates no directories and changes no block. Catalog metadata names canonical block ids rather than filenames. Register or inspect the source first, and never copy a digest from another edition under the assumption that it means the same bytes. For a person, vitruvio browse exposes this same hierarchy in the sidebar. Select a canonical source and press c to add placements interactively. The UI never invents schemes or classes: declare those first with a manifest or the catalog scheme / catalog class commands. Governed changes require an active authorized key with commit scope in ssh-agent and the resulting snapshot is explicitly signed; ungoverned changes remain visibly unsigned.