Glossary

The glossary defines terms used across ALX concepts, specifications, guides, and references. The Protocol Specification defines ALX Protocol behavior.

Optional capability and infrastructure terms describe systems around ALX Core. Optional capabilities and infrastructure do not change core Block identity or become requirements for core conformance.

Term	Definition
ALX Core	Required protocol behavior defined by the canonical specification, schemas, error identifiers, required suites, and conformance vectors.
ALX on Base	Base-specific smart-contract surface for recording commitments derived from ALX Blocks. Base participation is required for ALX on Base operations and is not required for ALX Core Block creation or verification.
ALX Protocol	Protocol defining Block structure, canonicalization, deterministic identity, declared parent relationships, and verification.
ALX value	Value admitted by the canonical ALX value model: null, a boolean, a valid Unicode string, a supported finite binary64 number, an array of ALX values, or a string-keyed map of ALX values.
Ancestor	Block reachable through one or more declared parent relationships from a selected Block.
Anchoring	Application or infrastructure operation that records a Block-derived commitment in an external system. Anchoring is not part of core Block creation or identity.
Application semantics	Meaning, policy, permissions, trust decisions, and presentation assigned to Block content by an application.
Attestation	Optional signature over a domain-separated canonical attestation payload associated with a Block identity. An attestation does not change Block identity or lineage.
Attribution	Deterministic structural computation over reachable Graph topology. Protocol attribution does not establish authorship, ownership, quality, or economic value.
AttributionTrace	Complete deterministic derivation structure containing the selected root, validation mode, nodes, edges, upstream leaves, unresolved boundaries, and depth data. A Trace is not a Block and has no protocol-defined identity.
Block	Sole ALX Protocol primitive. A v1 Block contains blockHash, contentHash, parentHashes, content, and protocolVersion.
blockHash	Domain-separated Keccak-256 identity derived from canonicalized { content, parentHashes } after parent normalization.
Block source	Deterministic lookup boundary returning zero, one, or multiple supplied Block candidates for a requested normalized blockHash. A Block source is verification input, not a protocol primitive.
Block verification	Evaluation of one supplied Block against protocol structure and identity rules. Block verification makes no claim about parent availability or Graph completeness.
Blockchain commitment	Record of a blockHash or Merkle root in a specified contract and chain context. A commitment does not change the committed Block.
Canonical bytes	UTF-8 bytes produced from the canonical representation and supplied to protocol identity derivation after the applicable domain tag.
Canonicalization	Deterministic serialization producing the same canonical representation for equivalent supported ALX values.
checked	Boolean recording whether Graph verification was performed. A result with checked: false omits Graph status and verification details.
childCount	Trace-local count of returned edges identifying a node as a parent. The count excludes Blocks outside the returned Trace.
CID	Content identifier used by content-addressed systems such as IPFS. A CID is separate from contentHash and blockHash.
Closed-world validation	Default validation mode requiring every in-scope declared parent Block to be available. Unavailable required parent data produces incomplete when no higher-precedence result applies.
Complete Trace	Trace with all required lineage resolved under the selected validation mode. Declared unresolved external parents make a Trace incomplete.
Conformance	Satisfaction of every canonical requirement and required suite applicable to a stated ALX Core or extension claim.
Conformance claim	Explicit statement of the protocol version, core scope, supported extensions, and required suites satisfied by an implementation.
Conformance vector	Language-neutral protocol input paired with exact expected output, semantic assertions, or expected failure behavior.
Content distribution	External delivery of Block data or referenced content between systems. ALX Core does not define transport or availability.
content	Application-defined data represented by a Block. ALX accepts supported ALX values and does not assign application meaning to the data.
contentHash	Domain-separated Keccak-256 identity derived from canonicalized content.
Declared relationship	Direct child-to-parent relationship encoded through parentHashes and bound into the child's blockHash. The declaration does not independently prove a real-world dependency.
Deployment manifest	Structured record connecting a reviewed contract build to source revision, compiler configuration, bytecode, address, and network.
Derivation Graph	Documentation term for a Graph formed as Blocks declare relationships to prior Blocks. Derivation Graph is not a separate protocol primitive.
Domain separation	Use of a protocol-specific byte prefix before hashing. ALX v1 uses separate domain tags for contentHash, blockHash, and optional attestation digests.
Edge	Declared child-to-parent relationship represented as from the child blockHash and to the parent blockHash.
Extension	Optional capability with separate rules, structures, errors, vectors, manifests, and conformance claims. Extension data does not enter core blockHash.
External parent boundary	Parent hash explicitly placed outside the required local verification scope by an open-world verification context.
Graph	Connected Block structure reachable by following declared parentHashes from a seed Block within a verification context.
Graph root	blockHash selected by context.graphRoot as the starting identity for a Graph operation. A Graph root can declare parents and is distinct from a parentless Root Block.
Graph verification	Evaluation of reachable Blocks and declared relationships within an explicit verification context.
Hash format	A 0x prefix followed by 64 lowercase hexadecimal characters representing a 32-byte Keccak-256 digest.
Implementation	Software performing ALX protocol operations. Conformance depends on observable protocol behavior and applicable required suites.
incomplete	Graph status indicating that no definite violation was discovered and required Block data was unavailable before verification could complete.
Index	Application-managed view of observed Blocks and derived relationships. Index contents and absence claims remain limited to the index's sources and scope.
invalid	Graph status indicating that at least one definite protocol violation was discovered.
IPFS	Optional content-addressed distribution system for serialized Block data or related content. Availability requires an application-defined persistence or pinning strategy.
Leaf	Resolved Trace node with no resolved parents. The canonical leaves field names upstream parentless nodes.
Lineage	Directed structure formed by declared parent relationships between Blocks.
maxDepth	Longest number of parent edges from the selected Trace root to a node. Top-level Trace maxDepth records the longest path to any returned node; verification-context maxDepth sets an inclusive scope boundary.
Merkle proof	Ordered sibling-hash data used to verify that a supplied hash is included in the set represented by a specified Merkle root.
Merkle root	Root digest representing a set of hashes under the selected Merkle-tree construction.
minDepth	Shortest number of parent edges from the selected Trace root to a node.
Missing parent	Syntactically valid required parent hash whose Block data is unavailable from the evaluated Block source. Missing data does not establish nonexistence or a protocol violation.
Node	Reachable Block identity represented in a Trace.
Open-world validation	Explicit validation mode allowing named external parent boundaries. Open-world validation verifies the child's structural binding to each declared external hash without verifying the external Block.
Parent Block	Block whose blockHash appears in another Block's parentHashes. The child Block declares the relationship.
Parent normalization	Deterministic trimming, lowercasing, validation, deduplication, and lexicographic sorting of parent hashes.
parentCount	Number of direct parents declared by a Trace node within the computed structure.
parentHashes	Array representation of the normalized, unordered set of declared direct parent blockHash values.
pathCount	Exact number of distinct paths from the selected Trace root to a node, encoded as an unsigned base-10 decimal string.
Protocol violation	Definite failure of a normative protocol rule, reported through a canonical ALX_* error identifier where defined.
protocolVersion	Required version marker for the Block algorithms. The v1 value is "1", and protocolVersion is excluded from v1 hash derivation.
Reachable Block	Seed Block or Block reached through in-scope declared parent relationships from the seed.
Required suite	Canonical collection of conformance cases that an implementation must satisfy for a stated claim.
resource_limit_reached	Graph status indicating that no definite violation was discovered and verification stopped after an execution budget was exhausted.
Resource budget	Execution limit such as maxBlocks or maxEdges. Budget exhaustion produces resource_limit_reached unless a known violation takes precedence.
Root Block	Block with an empty parentHashes array.
Scope boundary	Intentional limit on a verification claim. Verification-context maxDepth limits the claim by parent-edge distance from graphRoot.
Seed Block	Complete Block candidate supplied directly as the starting point for Graph verification. The Block source does not resolve the seed.
Signing domain	Values binding a signature to an exact protocol, network, contract, application, or message context. Verification reconstructs the expected domain.
Trace	Short name for the deterministic AttributionTrace result computed from a selected Graph root.
valid	Graph status indicating that every required check within the stated verification context completed successfully.
Verification	Application of deterministic protocol rules to supplied Block, Graph, signature, or Merkle data. Each verification operation establishes only the property evaluated.
Verification context	Input identifying graphRoot, validation mode, optional depth scope, optional resource budgets, active extensions, and declared external parent boundaries.
XNDR Network	Separate application and infrastructure layer for discovering and indexing observed ALX Blocks and declared relationships. XNDR Network does not define ALX Protocol behavior.