XwkOnt Publication Operations Guide¶

Status: Publication-operations guide
Date: 2026-07-01
Scope: Operational posture for public IRI publication, release artifacts, and first ontology milestone preparation

Purpose¶

This guide defines the practical publication operations posture for the current XwkOnt core ontology package, following the repository-first governance baseline.

XwkOnt remains repository-first. Repository files, release tags, release notes, and validation results are authoritative until public redirects and content negotiation are implemented and verified.

Current Publication State¶

Area	Current posture
Current core namespace	Active identifier namespace: `https://w3id.org/xwkont/core#`.
Current Turtle artifact	Repository artifact: `data/ontology/core.ttl`.
Human-readable core documentation	Repository artifact: `docs/ontology/core-ontology.md`.
Public IRI redirects	External w3id implementation request documented; not verified as deployed.
Content negotiation	Minimal HTML/Turtle behavior documented for external w3id request; not verified as deployed.
First ontology milestone tag	Not ready to create until redirect and content-negotiation behavior is implemented and validated.
Immutable versioned ontology document IRIs	Deferred; governance prerequisites are not yet complete.
Release artifact packaging	Defined as a minimal repository release bundle for the first external ontology milestone.

Operating Principles¶

Publication operations must preserve the existing project posture:

XwkOnt is not a foundational ontology.
The Git repository remains the Single Source of Truth.
Authoritative source ontologies remain authoritative.
Public identifiers identify XwkOnt comparison scaffolding, not source-ontology commitments.
Example data is illustrative and non-authoritative.
RDF and SKOS remain adopted standards; RDFS remains adapted lightweight vocabulary semantics.
OWL is not the default modeling layer.
xwkont-core:mapsTo must not regain formal RDFS domain or range commitments.

Publication Workflow¶

Before advertising public dereferenceability, maintainers should complete this sequence:

Confirm repository cleanliness.
Run publication validation commands.
Submit the external w3id.org redirect request documented in docs/publication/w3id-redirect-request.md.
Verify HTML and Turtle retrieval behavior using the policy in docs/publication/redirects-content-negotiation.md.
Record validation results in the release notes.
Prepare the first ontology milestone release bundle.
Create the ontology milestone tag only after the checked repository state is accepted.

Current Namespace Relationship¶

The current namespace is:

https://w3id.org/xwkont/core#

It is the stable current term namespace for core terms such as:

https://w3id.org/xwkont/core#Entity
https://w3id.org/xwkont/core#mapsTo

Because this is a hash namespace, retrieval of the namespace document occurs at the fragmentless IRI:

https://w3id.org/xwkont/core

The current namespace identifies current core terms. It is not an immutable version snapshot.

Future Versioned Document IRI Relationship¶

The governance baseline reserved this future pattern:

https://w3id.org/xwkont/ontology/core/MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH

That pattern remains inactive. It must not be advertised as dereferenceable or immutable until all prerequisites in docs/governance/release-versioning-policy.md are satisfied.

When activated, the versioned ontology document IRI should correspond exactly to a release tag and immutable release artifact bundle. The versioned document may identify versioned terms with fragment identifiers, for example:

https://w3id.org/xwkont/ontology/core/0.1.0#Entity

This example is reserved pattern documentation only; it is not active publication.

Release Tags and Release Notes¶

Repository release tags identify accepted repository states. Ontology release tags should follow:

ontology-core-vMAJOR.MINOR.PATCH

The expected first external ontology milestone tag is:

ontology-core-v0.1.0

The tag must not be created until the checklist in docs/publication/release-tagging-checklist.md is complete.

Release notes must identify:

the tag;
the included Turtle artifact;
included human-readable documentation;
validation commands and results;
known limitations;
redirect and content-negotiation status;
whether immutable versioned ontology document IRIs are active or deferred.

Minimal Release Bundle¶

The first external ontology milestone should include these repository artifacts at minimum:

Artifact	Role
`data/ontology/core.ttl`	Machine-readable current core vocabulary companion.
`docs/ontology/core-ontology.md`	Human-readable core ontology specification.
`docs/ontology/core-glossary.md`	Closed glossary.
`docs/ontology/core-axioms.md`	Conservative axiom and non-axiom commitments.
`docs/ontology/core-competency-questions.md`	Competency-question documentation.
`docs/ontology/core-validation.md`	Validation report.
`docs/publication/core-publication-guide.md`	Publication guide.
`docs/publication/uri-iri-policy.md`	URI/IRI policy.
`docs/publication/redirects-content-negotiation.md`	Redirect and content-negotiation policy.
`docs/publication/w3id-redirect-request.md`	External w3id implementation request for the current namespace.
`docs/publication/validation-commands.md`	Publication validation commands.
`docs/publication/release-tagging-checklist.md`	Pre-tag checklist.
`docs/releases/core-ontology-release-notes.md`	Release notes.

Illustrative examples may be included for validation context, but they must remain clearly non-authoritative.

Deferred Activation Items¶

Immutable versioned ontology document IRIs remain deferred because the repository does not yet contain verified deployed redirects, verified content negotiation, an accepted ontology release tag, or validation results tied to that tag.

Redirect implementation must be submitted to external w3id infrastructure rather than implemented as an active configuration in this repository. The next operational step is to verify public redirects and content negotiation, then rerun final validation from a clean tree and prepare ontology-core-v0.1.0.