Taxonomy evolution

Structure that grows through use

Your information can develop a structure that fits your life

Unison can recognize a repeated pattern, propose useful organization, and let each person decide whether a tag, subdomain, or protected context should become part of their system.

A taxonomy is personal and open

Unison begins with useful context spaces such as personal, household, health, financial, educational, legal, and home systems. These are starting points. Each person can develop vocabulary and organization suited to their own life without waiting for a software release.

The underlying domain identifier uses open vocabulary. A definition records whether it came from the system, the person, observed usage, or an update. Models can help recognize and name a pattern. Identity, consent, policy, retention, disclosure, encryption, and migration remain governed by the personal node.

How usage becomes a proposal

  1. Notice a patternContent-free signals record repeated requests, corrections, distinct audiences, or friction with existing retention, policy, and sharing choices.
  2. Require durable evidenceThe current software threshold requires at least three matching signals across at least two days before proposing a change.
  3. Select an appropriate levelUnison can propose a lightweight tag, a subdomain within an existing context, or a security domain with separate policy and key handling.
  4. Explain the proposalThe preview shows why the question appeared, the evidence count, expected benefits, controls, and possible migration scope without exposing raw requests or memories.
  5. Let the person decideThe person can approve, modify, defer, or decline through a native modality. Defer and decline suppress repeated prompts for defined periods.
  6. Activate vocabularyApproval creates the selected organization. Existing records remain in place until a separate migration is reviewed and confirmed.

For example, repeated work with leases, estate documents, contracts, and legal deadlines could prompt: “You have several legal-related items. Would you like Legal to become its own protected area?” The person can inspect why Unison is asking and choose the structure that fits.

Novel requests remain available through governed inference. A taxonomy proposal improves repeated work and organization while the system continues pursuing new intent through governed routes.

Three levels of organization

Tag

A lightweight label supports retrieval and organization while retaining the record's existing context, key, sharing, and retention policy.

Subdomain

A named area within an existing context can carry more specific organization and policy while inheriting its parent security controls.

Security domain

A separately governed domain receives an explicit review of key separation, retention, sharing, and disclosure before activation.

Security domains receive a deeper review

A security-domain proposal requires a complete control review and explicit person approval. The policy service issues a signed, short-lived authorization bound to the person, proposal, policy version, and reviewed controls. Missing, expired, or locally asserted authorization fails closed.

The proposal process cannot infer a security domain from a diagnosis, wealth, disability, or another sensitive personal attribute. Taxonomy records and signals remain scoped to one person, including on a shared household node.

Migration is a separate, reversible decision

Activating a category moves no existing records. A later migration preview identifies exact person-owned records and revisions, contains no record content, expires after 15 minutes, and has a deterministic digest. Execution requires confirmation of that exact preview and stops if a selected record changed.

A completed migration produces a receipt, updates governance, invalidates derived views, and applies the new key-domain handle for a security domain. A 30-day rollback window can restore the prior governance and key-domain handling with a second receipt.

Updates can contribute without taking control

Project and community updates can provide suggested definitions, policy templates, migration helpers, and compatibility information. Adoption remains a visible person-level decision. Updates cannot silently activate a domain, widen access, move records, or change a person's retention and disclosure choices.