Directed Edges, Inward and Outward Paths, and Query Paths
The direct source for the path-query engine built in v0.3.21.
team/humans/dinis_cruz/briefs/06/26/semantic-graph-and-query-paths/v0.33.35__arch-brief__sg-send-directed-edges-inward-outward-query-paths-prevent-node-explosion.md
Commitb561fa6b14 · carried 23 August 2026
LicenceApache-2.0 (repository) · CC BY 4.0 stated in the file
Bytes12,005 · 1,933 words · SHA-256 93e634f915678089
Dated26 June 2026
Why it is here
This is the document the path-query UI was built from, and it is worth reading against what got built. Its argument is that fixing the edge type and direction at every step is what collapses fan-out and prevents the explosion of nodes, and that every edge needs a named inverse or there is a direction the graph simply cannot be queried in. The site's grammar enforces the second; the query engine implements the first.
What it says
- Every edge is directed and has a distinct inverse.
- Each node has an outward path (what it opens) and an inward path (what led to it), and they read differently.
- A query path fixes the edge type and direction at every step, which collapses fan-out.
- Multi-seed queries converge on the natural peaks, so results stay bounded.
- Query paths can be indexed as path-to-node-set and grow by extension rather than rewriting.
Worth re-reading for. Claim 8, the two-pass analysis (mark the peaks, then walk directed paths to them), is exactly what the concept map does and neither was written with the other in view.
Where this document lands on the site
The document is the peak. Below it hang the concepts measured in its text and the places on this site that rest on it — and the two are different kinds of link, drawn differently: a measured edge is dashed and carries its count, an authored edge is solid. The method is stated in full on the hub.