Author Identity

• CURIE: gmeow:AuthorIdentity
• IRI: https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/AuthorIdentity
• Category: class
• Defined by: gmeow:slices/software
• Box roles: TBox role (What is this?)

A recorded author or committer string in a version-control commit — the raw git bytes (Name ). This is the immutable historical assertion, independent of the current canonical agent. Superseded identities are retained with gmeow:displayable false rather than deleted (Principle 10).

Structure

Subclass of: gmeow:InformationObject

Practical Pattern

Use gmeow:AuthorIdentity as a specialized kind of gmeow:InformationObject. Add statement metadata or a standpoint when the assertion needs provenance, confidence, or vantage.

Example Snippets

These snippets are generated from canonical slice examples and trimmed to the Turtle blocks where this term appears.

Commit History

• Source: slices/extensions/software/examples/commit-history.ttl
• Examples catalog: open in catalog#example-slices-extensions-software-examples-commit-history

# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2026 Blackcat Informatics® Inc. <paudley@blackcatinformatics.ca>
# SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-4.0
#
# Worked example: a commit DAG with identity canonicalization and build provenance
# Commits form a directed graph via gmeow:commitAncestor. Each commit's
# author is recorded as a gmeow:AuthorIdentity — the as-committed git identity
# (one of possibly many emails) — which gmeow:canonicalizedIdentity resolves to
# the real gmeow:Agent, so "same person, three git emails" is one agent without
# rewriting history. A gmeow:BuildActivity ties a source commit (gmeow:buildSource)
# to the gmeow:Distribution it produced (gmeow:buildOutput): verifiable provenance
# from source to artifact.
@prefix gmeow: <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/> .
@prefix ex:    <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/examples/software/> .
@prefix rdfs:  <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .

# --- The author's git identity, canonicalized to the real agent.
ex:danaGitId a gmeow:AuthorIdentity ;
    gmeow:canonicalizedIdentity ex:dana .

Common Companion Terms

gmeow:InformationObject

Projects To

Linkages

Generated from the canonical mapping DSL. SSSOM files are the generated public interchange form for term equivalences.

Projection Coverage