Canonicalization

Kind: technique

Layer: Contracts Core

Record: architecture:canonicalization

Severity: recommended

Scope: input, data, security

Canonical: Ontology

A technique for converting equivalent values to one normal form before they are compared, stored or checked.

Listed in Architecture principles, after Canonical Schema and before Single Source of Truth.

Requires

• Canonical Format

Reinforces

• Validation
• Deduplication

Enables

• Idempotency
• Security Checks

Conflicts with

• Ambiguous Encoding

In tension with

• Lossless Preservation

Tensions

• Canonicalization / Lossless Preservation

Violated by

• Ambiguous Encoding

Severity

• recommended

Category

• Schema / Canonical Data / Semantics

Refactors

• Null Semantics Drift
• Platform Independence
• Robustness Principle

Linked from

• Anti-patterns
• Correctness / Determinism / Verification
• Portability / Infrastructure / Deployment
• Error Handling / Resilience
• Transactions / State / Concurrency
• Schema / Canonical Data / Semantics
• Severity levels
• The resolutions