ADR-0006 — One context fragment normal form, addressed by URI¶

• Status: Accepted · Date: 2026-09-06 · Promotes: notes/transcript.md §9.5

Context¶

Context arrives from code selections, terminal buffers, browser pages, and container logs. Without a common shape, every consumer — each agent, each panel, each export — needs an adapter per origin, and the count multiplies.

Decision¶

All captured context normalises to one ContextFragment envelope regardless of origin: origin, title, payload hash into the CAS, a snippet for display, and creation time. Every fragment is addressable as omnis://context/<id>, resolvable by any surface, agent, or extension. Payload bytes live in the CAS; the fragment row is metadata.

Alternatives rejected¶

• Per-origin formats. N origins times M consumers of adapters, and a new origin breaks existing consumers.
• Passing raw text. Loses provenance, so an agent cannot tell a terminal buffer from a web page, and a fragment cannot be re-resolved later.
• Keeping context only in the agent's window. Not durable, not shareable, not inspectable, and gone when the session ends.

Consequences¶

A fragment must resolve to the same content after a restart, which makes CAS retention a correctness requirement rather than an optimisation. omnis:// needs a resolver in every surface. Fragments captured from a page or a repository can contain secrets, so redaction is a real obligation.