Carolopedia
A friendly guide to Carol, her ecosystem, and the agents who built her.
📖 Carolopedia › CanonicalGuide page
📖What it means
The one copy that counts. Where two copies of the same thing exist, exactly one is canonical and the other is a rendering of it — anything else guarantees drift.
⚖️What it is NOT
The neighbours this word is most often confused with, and the line between them.
Not: Backup
A canonical copy is the one everything reads; a backup is a copy kept in case that one is lost.
Not: Cache
A cache may be stale by design; a canonical copy may not.
🗣️Also called
authoritativethe one true copysource of truth copy