@medicine-wheel/ontology-core

Foundational ontology layer for the Medicine Wheel Developer Suite — unified types, RDF vocabulary, Zod schemas, constants, and semantic query helpers grounded in Indigenous relational ontology.

[!WARNING] Experimental alpha. Part of the Medicine Wheel Developer Suite, which is under active development. APIs change between patch versions and all packages move in lockstep — pin exact versions. See ALPHA.md.

Overview

This package is the single source of truth for the Medicine Wheel data model, consumed by both mcp-medicine-wheel (server) and mcp-medicine-wheel-ui (client).

What it provides

| Module | Description | |--------|-------------| | types | TypeScript type definitions for all entities (nodes, relations, ceremonies, beats, cycles) | | kinship | Named kinship-edge vocabulary — governed, directional edges (tends-to, speaks-with, holds-responsibility-for, co-emerges-with + RSIS verbs) | | vocabulary | Medicine Wheel domain namespaces + label constants (mw:, ids:, ocap:, rel:, cer:, beat:) | | rdf-interop | Optional RDF/OWL adapter — standard namespaces + IRI utilities for serializing OUT to the semantic web (not the backbone) | | schemas | Zod validation schemas for runtime data integrity | | constants | Direction definitions, color maps, icons, Ojibwe names, act mappings | | queries | Semantic query helpers — traversal, Wilson alignment, OCAP® compliance |

Installation

npm install @medicine-wheel/ontology-core

Or link locally:

npm link ../medicine-wheel/src/ontology-core

Usage

import {
  // Types
  type RelationalNode, type Relation, type DirectionName,

  // Constants
  DIRECTIONS, DIRECTION_COLORS, NODE_TYPE_COLORS,

  // RDF Vocabulary
  MW, CER, OCAP, REL,

  // Zod Schemas
  RelationalNodeSchema, RelationSchema,

  // Query Helpers
  computeWilsonAlignment, checkOcapCompliance, traverseRelationalWeb,
} from '@medicine-wheel/ontology-core';

Key Concepts

Relational-First Schema

In Indigenous relational ontology, relationships are not just labeled edges — they are beings with their own lifecycles, obligations, protocols, and accountability. The Relation type reflects this:

interface Relation {
  id: string;
  from_id: string;
  to_id: string;
  relationship_type: string;   // free-string, kept for back-compat
  kinship_type?: KinshipEdgeName; // governed named edge (kinship vocabulary)
  strength: number;            // 0–1
  direction?: DirectionName;
  ceremony_context?: { ... };  // Ceremony linkage
  obligations: RelationalObligation[];
  ocap: OcapFlags;             // OCAP® governance
  accountability: AccountabilityTracking; // Wilson's 3 R's
  context?: RelationContext;   // who authorized it, in which circle it holds
}

Named Kinship Edges

The kinship vocabulary replaces the free-string edge with governed, directional edges expressed as data, not a class tree — no edge type is a subclass of another.

import { KINSHIP_EDGE_TYPES, inverseEdge, isKinshipEdgeName } from '@medicine-wheel/ontology-core';

inverseEdge('holds-responsibility-for'); // 'in-care-of'  (asymmetric)
inverseEdge('co-emerges-with');          // 'co-emerges-with' (symmetric)
isKinshipEdgeName('speaks-with');        // true

Edge Context

A relation may carry the context that authorizes and bounds it — consumed by the protocol-guard stack in @medicine-wheel/relational-query:

relation.context = {
  authorized_by: 'elder-council',
  active_context: 'talking_circle:open',
  authorized_kin: ['agent-mia', 'agent-ava'],
};

OCAP® Governance

Every relation carries OcapFlags (Ownership, Control, Access, Possession) — the First Nations principles of data sovereignty.

Wilson Alignment

Shawn Wilson's three R's (Respect, Reciprocity, Responsibility) are tracked per relation and aggregated across cycles. Use computeWilsonAlignment() and findAccountabilityGaps() to monitor relational health.

RDF Interop Adapter (optional)

The kinship graph is primary. RDF/OWL is an optional adapter (rdfInterop) for serializing OUT to triple stores — not the ontology backbone. Domain labels stay in vocabulary; standard namespaces + IRI utilities live in the adapter:

MW.Direction  // domain label: https://ontology.medicine-wheel.dev/mw#Direction

import { rdfInterop } from '@medicine-wheel/ontology-core';
rdfInterop.expandIRI('mw:Direction'); // → full IRI
// Back-compat: prefixed/expandIRI/compactIRI/PREFIXES also remain at the package root.

License

MIT — IAIP Collaborative, Shawinigan, QC