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Model & govern / Glossary and ownership

Glossary and ownership ​

The glossary gives business terms one agreed definition and links them to the model objects that implement them.

Terms ​

  • Lifecycle: Draft → In review → Approved → Deprecated. Anyone who edits models can create, edit, submit and link terms; approving, deprecating and changing an approved term needs the Govern permission (Steward, Admin, Owner).
  • A term has a Markdown definition, synonyms, related terms, owners and stewards, and a domain.
  • Deprecating a term linked to certified metrics requires a replacement (422 Governance.ReplacementRequired).
  • Links address model objects by name (metric:{model}/{metric}, entity:{model}/{entity}, dimensions, measures, tables and columns), so they survive releases.

Top-bar search (⌘K / Ctrl K focuses it) combines PostgreSQL full-text search over definitions with trigram similarity over names and synonyms. A synonym finds its canonical term first ("Client" → Customer).

INFO

Semantic (vector) search is not available: there is no embedding provider yet. The migration needs the pg_trgm extension, so managed PostgreSQL must allow it.

Suggestions ​

After every release (and on demand), Keel proposes terms and synonym merges from the business names of entities, metrics and recurring dimensions — grouped by heuristics and, when the tenant enables AI, by the LLM (names and kinds only, confidence ≤ 0.7). Stewards accept or reject them in the glossary's suggestion banner; decided suggestions never return.

Domains and ownership ​

  • Domains form a hierarchy (up to 5 levels).
  • Ownership — an owner, stewards and a domain per asset; entities and metrics inherit from their entity or the model when unassigned. Assign in bulk for a whole domain or source schema (POST …/ownership:bulk, overwrite off by default). GET …/ownership/unowned lists what still needs an owner.

Import and export ​

CSV or JSON in the same format both ways (GET …/glossary:export, POST …/glossary:import, stewards). Exports guard against spreadsheet formula injection.

Governance summary ​

GET …/governance/summary counts unowned assets, terms by status, pending suggestions and certified metrics without an approved term. A governance dashboard screen for it is not built yet.

Anchor Keel is a working product name: one platform, a shared core and licensed modules (Keel Semantic, Keel Migrate). Documentation built from the repository — facts are derived from code, ADRs and the decisions log.