Docs / Why Rig / design-philosophy
Design philosophy
Rig is a future-proof, host-independent, human-readable vocabulary for creative work.
Rig - Readable Independent Grammar.
| Letter | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Readable | Human readable and human editable |
| Independent | Of host, runtime, language, and platform |
| Grammar | The schemas - field names, units, ids - and the wire shape that carries them: entities with POD components |
This page is the tablet. It states what Rig optimises for and where its boundaries sit. Why no code argues for agreement instead of a library and names the cost. AI co-coding follows one consequence: when execution becomes cheap to generate, shared concepts become more valuable, not less.
What the claims mean
| Claim | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Future-proof | Concepts, field names, and units outlive the renderers, runtimes, and languages that execute them. |
| Host-independent | Two hosts that never met can exchange work when they speak the same schema ids. Neither links the other's code. |
| Human-readable | A document is plain data. Open the file, change a number, save it, and load it somewhere else. |
Principles
- One concept, one home. Prefer composition over duplication -
rig.meta.named,rig.spatial.anchor,rig.render.visibility,rig.render.blend- not the same idea re-declared on every domain schema. The grammar is the schema catalog plus entity/component composition on the wire (rig.document). - Concept over execution. The Contract says what a transform is and which units it uses. A fulfillment decides how to draw, play, print, or otherwise execute it this year, on this hardware.
- Ship what you support. A host that implements six schemas and ignores the rest is still Rig. Grow the catalog when a second host needs the same meaning - not before.
- Portable meaning, private execution. Portable fields use
rig.<domain>.<name>. Host-only meaning usesx.<vendor>.<name>- see extension components. Do not mirror a Contract component underx.*to add one field. Derived values and live state stay host cache, not document data.
Encoding
The portable wire is JSON (rig.document, interchange). On disk that JSON is a .rig file, or a .rigz ZIP when sidecar files travel in data/. Other on-disk encodings (OpenBIM, UFO, IDML, SVG) are host mappings at the boundary.
Next
why-no-code.md - the anti-library argument and honest price · ai-collaboration.md - why shared concepts matter when models write execution · terms.md - Contract, fulfillment, host, pack · honors.md - the minimum bar