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Concepts

Concepts are similar to class declarations in most object-oriented languages, in that they may have a super-type and a set of typed properties:

abstract concept Animal {
  o DateTime dob
}

concept Dog extends Animal {
 o String breed
}

Concepts can be declared abstract if it should not be instantiated (must be subclassed).

Identity​

Concepts may optionally declare an identifying field, using either the identified by (explicitly named identity field) or identified ($identifier system identity field) syntax. Identifying fields must have type String or a String facet.

Person below is defined to use the email property as its identifying field.

concept Person identified by email {
  o String email
  o String firstName
  o String lastName
}

While Product below will use $identifier as its identifying field.

concept Product identified {
  o String name
  o Double price
}

Assets​

An asset is a class declaration that has a single String property which acts as an identifier. You can use the modelManager.getAssetDeclarations API to look up all assets.

asset Vehicle identified by vin {
  o String vin
}

Assets are implicitly identified if you do not specify your own identifying property. The property name is $identifier.

Assets are typically used in your models for the long-lived identifiable Things (or nouns) in the model: cars, orders, shipping containers, products, etc.

Participants​

Participants are class declarations that have a single String property acting as an identifier. You can use the modelManager.getParticipantDeclarations API to look up all participants.

participant Customer identified by email {
  o String email
}

Participants are implicitly identified if you do not specify your own identifying property. The property name is $identifier.

Participants are typically used for the identifiable people or organizations in the model: person, customer, company, business, auditor, etc.

Transactions​

Transactions have an implicit $timestamp property with type DateTime. You can use the modelManager.getTransactionDeclarations API to look up all transactions.

transaction Order {
}

Transactions are typically used in models for the identifiable business events or messages that are submitted by Participants to change the state of Assets: cart check out, change of address, identity verification, place order, etc.

Events​

Events are similar to Transactions in that they are also class declarations that have a $timestamp property. You can use the modelManager.getEventDeclarations API to look up all events.

event LateDelivery {
}

Events are typically used in models for the identifiable business events or messages that are emitted by logic to signify that something of interest has occurred.