---
desc: The project model that gives design a nominal intermediate form.
lifecycle: Active
name: Sirno
structural:
  category:
  - concept
---

Sirno is the Semantic Intermediate Representation of Nominal Objects.

This *lake* focuses on Sirno's general design as a tool and as a philosophical system for design work.

Perspective matters because this repository is also a Sirno-managed project.
General claims describe Sirno as the tool and project model.
`this repository` names the implementation workspace for Sirno.
`this lake` names `sirno-docs/`,
the self-hosted Sirno Lake that describes Sirno.

It compiles between design forms for design-aware programming work.
It moves among one long-form *monograph*,
a *lake* of compact named Markdown *entries*,
and the *repository*.

The central problem is project memory.
Design tends to begin as a narrative, then scatter across code, tests, comments,
review threads, and the working memory of whoever touched the project last.
Sirno gives that memory a named intermediate form.
It keeps the design readable as prose while making its pieces small enough to index,
query, revise, and cite during implementation.

Sirno gives design a nominal intermediate form.
The names are readable by humans, stable for tools,
and small enough for agents to inspect without carrying the whole project in context.

Sirno maintains structure:
*entry* ids, metadata fields, *structural fields*, *generated footers*,
storage conventions, and *witness* lookup.
People, agents, and other tools still judge design quality and semantic truth.

This division is important.
Sirno does not claim to know whether an architecture is elegant,
whether a test proves the right property,
or whether a *repository* path truly satisfies a design claim.
It gives those claims stable handles.
That makes the conversation around design more precise:
a person can ask for an *entry* to be realized,
a reviewer can ask for the *witness* of an *entry*,
and an agent can inspect a bounded set of related *entries* before editing code.

The result should feel like a project with good names for its important ideas.
Narratives give the reader routes through the design.
The *lake* gives the project durable local objects.
The *repository* gives those objects consequences.
Sirno keeps the edges between those forms explicit.
