examples/document-prose-profile.umsg
%unimsg 0 document/prose-profile/v0 · 180 lines · 8702 bytes of text · 4144 bytes canonical · the raw file
Point at anything below — a sigil, a literal, a brace — and the card says what it is. Keyboard: tab through the document. Every explanation is also printed in full beneath the source.
%unimsg 0 document/prose-profile/v0
-- The first document in @rd/profile/prose/v0, written to find out whether the
-- profile is usable rather than to assert that it is.
--
-- THE OTHER TWO EXAMPLES ARE TYPESETTING. The tenancy agreement is paginated
-- and sets its margins; the Japanese article embeds two font faces and chooses
-- a leading in points. Both are the vocabulary working as designed, and both
-- are what somebody asking for an "enhanced markdown" did not want.
--
-- THIS ONE DECLARES NO TYPE AT ALL. Its defaults are the profile's, verbatim,
-- and after that there is not a single length in the file. What is left is the
-- part markdown cannot do: a table with a spanning header, a footnote, an
-- ordered list that is really numbered, a derived contents list, and an anchor
-- somebody can link to.
--
-- WHAT WRITING AND THEN RENDERING IT FOUND, and the count is the evidence
-- rather than a confession: six. Two changed the profile, three were this
-- document lying about the vocabulary, and one is a renderer's to fix.
--
-- THE THREE THIS DOCUMENT GOT WRONG were all the same mistake, and a renderer
-- found them where reading did not: a :table-cell, a :quotation and a note
-- entry all take BLOCKS under :children, and this document put runs in
-- :content on the first two and a bare block sequence on the third. All three
-- parsed. They rendered as an empty three-column grid, a quotation with a
-- source and no words, and a note card with a number and no note — each found
-- by looking at a rendering, none by reading the file.
--
-- THE LESSON IS ABOUT WHERE THE TRUTH IS. The structural table has a column
-- headed `carries-runs` and it answers `no` for every one of them; note-keys
-- requires :doc and :children. A parser cannot catch this, because a document
-- with a key the vocabulary does not define there is still well-formed
-- unimsg — so the gate that would catch it is a vocabulary checker, and until
-- one exists a renderer is the checker.
--
-- THE RENDERER'S ONE is the ordered list: this document names a :decimal
-- scheme and neither renderer wrote a number. The document says what to write,
-- so that is a gap on the reading side rather than the writing side. An
-- UNORDERED list is different and is nobody's bug — there is no bullet counter
-- style, a list with no :numbering is simply unordered, and the marker is the
-- reader's to choose. That is exactly why the profile now carries
-- what-a-reader-still-owes.
--
-- A LIST IS ORDERED ONLY BY CARRYING :numbering. The first draft refused
-- numbering schemes as typography, which would have refused the ordered list —
-- the one construct nobody would give up.
--
-- THERE IS NO INLINE-CODE RUN KIND. Inline code is a :text run whose :family is
-- :mono, so the draft that refused :family outright had no inline code in a
-- profile written to be a superset of a markdown subset that has it. :family is
-- now restricted to the three generic names rather than refused, which is the
-- honest line: a generic name is a request the reader satisfies, not a
-- measurement.
--
-- AND :styles SURVIVES USEFULLY only because a style may still say WHAT
-- something is. The moment it says how big, it is out.
prose-profile @document/prose-profile/v0 {
title "Reading a document without typesetting it"
status :draft
at 2026-09-01
flow :reflowable
targets [ external -> @rd/profile/prose/v0 ]
locale { language "en", direction :ltr }
-- The profile's block, verbatim. Every conforming document carries this
-- same five lines, which is what lets a profile reader skip resolution: it
-- knows the answer before it opens the file.
defaults {
family :sans
size pt 12
weight 400
colour :on-surface
line-height em 1.4
}
-- A style may say WHAT a thing is. It may not say how big.
styles {
caution { doc "a paragraph the reader should not skim", applies-to :block, properties { fill :muted } }
term { doc "a term on first use", applies-to :text, properties { slant :italic } }
strong { doc "a run the sentence turns on", applies-to :text, properties { weight 700 } }
code { doc "code, in the line", applies-to :text, properties { family :mono } }
}
numbering {
steps { doc "the steps of the procedure", style :decimal }
}
notes {
why-not-a-sibling {
doc "why this is a profile rather than a fourth vocabulary"
children [
{ block :paragraph, content [
"A fourth vocabulary would duplicate the block table, and two block tables drift." ] },
]
}
}
content [
{ block :contents, over :sections, depth 1 },
@what { block :section, name [ "What the profile is" ],
children [
{ block :paragraph, content [
"A prose document is an ordinary rich document that has declined to make any ",
{ kind :text, text "typographic", style -> @styles.term },
" decision. It carries the profile's defaults unchanged, sets no length anywhere, and is therefore readable by a renderer that never implements resolution",
{ kind :note, to -> @notes.why-not-a-sibling },
"." ] },
{ block :paragraph, style -> @styles.caution, content [
"It is still a rich document. A full reader renders it exactly as it renders any other, and nothing here narrows the vocabulary." ] },
] },
@keeps { block :section, name [ "What survives that markdown cannot hold" ],
children [
{ block :list, children [
{ block :list-item, children [
{ block :paragraph, content [ "a table whose header spans two columns" ] } ] },
{ block :list-item, children [
{ block :paragraph, content [ "a footnote with a real body, rather than a line at the bottom of the file" ] } ] },
{ block :list-item, children [
{ block :paragraph, content [ "an anchor another document can point at — see ",
{ kind :link, to -> @what, content [ "the section above" ] }, "" ] } ] },
] },
@comparison { block :table, name [ "Where each format stops" ],
children [
{ block :table-row, repeat :header, children [
{ block :table-header, scope :column, span { columns 2 }, children [ { block :paragraph, content [ "structure" ] } ] },
{ block :table-header, scope :column, children [ { block :paragraph, content [ "type" ] } ] },
] },
{ block :table-row, children [
{ block :table-cell, children [ { block :paragraph, content [ "markdown" ] } ] },
{ block :table-cell, children [ { block :paragraph, content [ "headings, lists, links" ] } ] },
{ block :table-cell, children [ { block :paragraph, content [ "none, and that is the point" ] } ] },
] },
{ block :table-row, children [
{ block :table-cell, children [ { block :paragraph, content [ "this profile" ] } ] },
{ block :table-cell, children [ { block :paragraph, content [ "tables, notes, citations, navigation" ] } ] },
{ block :table-cell, children [ { block :paragraph, content [ "none, declared" ] } ] },
] },
{ block :table-row, children [
{ block :table-cell, children [ { block :paragraph, content [ "the full vocabulary" ] } ] },
{ block :table-cell, children [ { block :paragraph, content [ "the same" ] } ] },
{ block :table-cell, children [ { block :paragraph, content [ "pages, fonts, inks, lengths" ] } ] },
] },
] },
] },
@writing { block :section, name [ "Writing one" ],
children [
{ block :list, numbering -> @numbering.steps, children [
{ block :list-item, children [
{ block :paragraph, content [ "copy the profile's ",
{ kind :text, text "defaults", style -> @styles.code }, " block, unchanged" ] } ] },
{ block :list-item, children [
{ block :paragraph, content [ "name the profile in ",
{ kind :text, text "targets", style -> @styles.code } ] } ] },
{ block :list-item, children [
{ block :paragraph, content [ "write the document, and set no length" ] } ] },
] },
{ block :quotation,
source [ "@rd/profile/prose/v0" ],
children [
{ block :paragraph, content [
"Declaring this profile is an author saying they have none." ] },
] },
{ block :code, lines [
"targets [ external -> @rd/profile/prose/v0 ]",
] },
] },
]
}
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79 6c 65 da 00 01 11 d4 67 64 65 63 69 6d 61 6cexamples/document-prose-profile.umsg 4144 bytesEvery construct on this page
The formal columns are read from the specification when this page is generated. The last column is this site's plain-language gloss and is not normative — where they differ, the specification is right.
| construct | glyph | carries | example | gloss |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| :annotation | — | — | — | A bare name qualifying the value after it—for example a language tag or a unit such as kg. It is not a value itself; a bare name with nothing after it is an error, not a guess. |
| :array | ^ | type, or type:shape; then [ elements ] | ^f64 [ 1.5, 2.5 ] or ^i16:2x3 [ … ] | A packed, homogeneous numeric array. The ^ marker gives every element its type and may also give the row-major shape: ^f64:2x3 [ … ]. |
| :array-element | — | — | — | One element of a typed array. Its type comes from the ^ marker, so 1.5 inside ^f64 is binary64 rather than an exact decimal. |
| :array-missing | — | — | — | A missing position in a typed array. null here is not an element value: it adds a validity mask while preserving the array's shape. |
| :block | — | — | — | A block: named pairs, in braces. Its keys are sorted in the encoding and shown here as written. |
| :bytes | ~ | encoding:data | ~hex:ff00 or ~b64:iVBORw0KGgo= | Raw octets, carried as octets. No base64 tax, no pretending they are text. |
| :comment | -- | to end of line | -- a note | A note for people. It travels with the pair it precedes and never reaches the bytes. |
| :decimal | — | — | — | An exact decimal. 19.99 is nineteen and ninety-nine hundredths, not the nearest double to it. |
| :extension | ! | name, then value | !acme/hint { zone 4 } | A qualifier this reader may not know. It survives the round trip intact, and stays legible on the way past — the rule that separates an extension from a private convention. |
| :float | — | — | — | A binary float, marked so it can never be mistaken for the exact decimal beside it. |
| :hash | # | algorithm:hex | #sha256:deadbeef | The digest of some content, with the algorithm said out loud so it is still meaningful in ten years. |
| :header | % | unimsg only | %unimsg 0 label | Declares the format version and what this document is. Optional, and useful exactly when a file arrives without context. |
| :identifier | @ | word | @ord-88213 | Gives this value a name, so another document can point at it without copying it. |
| :integer | — | — | — | A whole number of any size. Past 2^53 it is still exact, which is the whole reason this is not JSON. |
| :key | — | — | — | A field name: the first thing in a pair. It is bare when possible and quoted when needed, and names the content without becoming part of the value. |
| :reference | -> | an identifier or a path | -> @cust-4471, -> @lexicon.entries.kitāb | Points at a name. Nothing follows it while reading — resolution is somebody else's job, deliberately. |
| :reserved-literal | — | — | — | One of six bare words that are values rather than names. The list is fixed, so no value is coerced by what it looks like. |
| :sequence | — | — | — | An ordered list. Order is preserved and is meaning. |
| :string | — | — | — | Text. May span lines, so prose does not have to be escaped into one. |
| :symbol | : | word | :dispatched | A name from a fixed vocabulary, not free text. :high is a value someone chose; "high" is a phrase someone typed. |
| :table-row | | | cells | | sku qty | One record of a table. A table is sugar for a sequence of blocks with the same keys, and encodes identically to the longhand. |
| — | — | — | A temporal value at the precision written. 2026-08 stays a month, and 03:52 stays a wall-clock time; neither is widened into an invented instant. |