Namespace Relative Basing

Perfect — I like intramesh identifiers as a project-specific term, since it makes clear: “these are inside the mesh, and they behave like relative IRIs but with conventions.” 👍

Here’s a doc-style write-up on namespace-relative basing, phrased to integrate with your terminology and conventions:

Namespace-Relative Basing

In Semantic Flow, distributions are often nested deeply inside a node’s flows (e.g., _data-flow/_current/...). If base IRIs are left implicit, relative identifiers would need multiple ../ steps to reach the node or its siblings. To simplify this, Semantic Flow recommends namespace-relative basing.

Concept

Every distribution file declares an explicit @base (in TriG/Turtle) or @context/@base (in JSON-LD).
Instead of using the document’s path as the base (the default in RDF), the base is set relative to the namespace root (one level above the node root).
This makes the namespace root the anchor, so that nodes can be referred to by simple <name> identifiers.

Path layout

namespace-root/
  djradon/
    _data-flow/_current/djradon.trig
    _meta-flow/_current/meta.trig
  another-node/

With namespace-relative basing

@base <../../../> .

<djradon> a :Node ;
  :hasMeta <djradon/_meta-flow/_current/meta.trig> ;
  :relatedTo <another-node> .

<> resolves to the namespace root (namespace-root/).
<djradon> resolves to the node (namespace-root/djradon/).
<another-node> is a sibling in the namespace.
Intra-node flows are reached with djradon/....

Advantages

Sibling references are short: <another-node> instead of climbing out with ../../../.
Node references are stable: <djradon> always means the node root, regardless of where the distribution lives.
Clarity: <> = namespace, <name> = node, <name/path> = subresources.

Comparison with Node-Relative Basing

Basing Style	`@base` value	`<>` =	`<djradon>` =	Best For…
Node-relative	`../../`	Node root	Child of node	Config/meta flows describing the node itself
Namespace-relative	`../../../`	Namespace root	Node root	Data/reference flows linking across nodes

Guidelines

data-flow and ref-flow distributions should use namespace-relative basing, since they often refer to siblings or other nodes.
meta-flow and config-flow distributions may use node-relative basing if they mostly describe the node itself.
Always set @base explicitly in every distribution to avoid fragile relative paths.

JSON-LD Example

{
  "@context": {
    "@base": "../../../"
  },
  "@id": "djradon",
  "@type": "Node",
  "hasMeta": "djradon/_meta-flow/_current/meta.trig",
  "relatedTo": "another-node"
}

✅ With namespace-relative basing, intramesh identifiers remain short, predictable, and consistent across all distributions, while still resolving correctly to absolute IRIs.

Backlinks

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