Ontology Runtime

Alpha handlers and services on the Runtime SDK.

The Ontology Runtime is the Alpha-specific implementation that runs Ontology DSL semantics on top of the generic Runtime SDK. It consumes Canonical IR, installs operational declarations, checks policies, executes commands, invokes effects, projects interfaces, and writes durable assertions through runtime plugins such as the Fact Store.

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Canonical IR  -> Ontology Runtime  -> handlers, services, policies, commands, effects  -> facts, projections, APIs, UIs, agents

What It Owns#

The Ontology Runtime owns the Alpha-specific runtime behavior:

entity and fact materialization
actor and command handling
policy checks
effect invocation
projection updates
generated service surfaces
agent tool boundaries
audit and provenance hooks

It should not reparse source. Source has already been checked and elaborated by Forma Toolchain. Runtime behavior should consume the typed contract and preserve the same semantic model through execution.

Deployment Targets#

Forma systems should be able to run in more than one host environment. The Runtime SDK contract gives Alpha Ontology a shared execution shape while allowing deployment targets to differ.

The intended deploy targets include:

Node for standard server deployments, local development, and integrated web/API processes.
Bun for fast local and edge-adjacent deployments where its runtime model fits.
Cloudflare Durable Objects for actor-like operational state, durable coordination, and edge deployment.

The point is not that every target has identical infrastructure. The point is that the same checked IR and runtime semantics can be installed into different hosts without each host inventing its own model of the organization.

Relationship To ontology.run#

ontology.run is the hosted deployment product. The Ontology Runtime is the Alpha-specific execution layer it can package, provision, observe, and operate.