Value

A value is pure structured data. It is the concrete information used to read, write, transmit, compare, validate, transform, or carry state.

Values are identity-free, version-free, lineage-free, and timeless. They do not carry subject, observer, source, occurrence, or provenance. Those belong to contextual concepts such as observation, event, entity state, state records, histories, and lineage metadata.

A value may be:

Empty or absent, such as null or undefined.
Scalar, such as boolean, integer, decimal, string, temporal value, or bytes.
Composite, such as array, vector, map, dictionary, record, object, or another structured aggregate.

A value may have a shape or representation. The shape describes the logical structure expected by a model or operation. The representation describes how the value is physically stored or accessed, such as dictionary-backed fields, ordinal record layouts, sparse buffers, packed presence bits, columnar storage, or struct-of-arrays storage.

Representation is not part of semantic identity. Two values with the same logical content are the same value even if one is dictionary-backed and another is layout-buffer-backed. Optimized representations must preserve logical equality, validation, serialization, and transformation behavior.

Values relate to the other semantic concepts as follows:

State is condition; value is the concrete information used to read or write that condition.
Observation is a value with context: subject, shape, source, version, observer, or lineage.
Event is a value with occurrence.
Command is an input event interpreted as an attempted transition.
Query is an input event interpreted as a request to observe, compute, or return information.
Entity state is an entity-scoped observation: a value attributed to an entity identity at a version.
A transition consumes values and observations in a transition context and may produce an accepted endogenous event or state change.

Values may be complete, partial, or projected only relative to a declared shape, model boundary, or operation. Completeness is not intrinsic to the value itself.