How Cards Work
The working identity, content, and provenance model for CinterForge Cards.
Cards connect an item with its context
A Card is more than a visual layout. The working model brings together an identity, media or other payload (or a reference to it), descriptive metadata, and the context needed to understand where the item came from and how it relates to other work.
The parts of a Card
| Part | Purpose in the working model |
|---|---|
| Identity (UCI) | Distinguishes a Card across the collection and connected workflows. The expansion, uniqueness guarantees, persistence, and registry rules still need product/engineering confirmation. |
| Payload or reference | Holds or points to media and structured content, depending on Card type. Supported formats and storage behavior are release-specific. |
| Metadata | Describes the Card and its content so it can be understood, organized, and presented. |
| Provenance and lineage | Records source, creator, license, version, and transformations where the workflow supports those fields. This is a design goal; exact coverage is being validated. |
How Cards move through the product
People may ingest material, create or enrich Cards, collect and organize them, and view the result. These activities can happen in different orders. Collection is the central Desktop section and Companion’s collection-management focus. Cinter and Forge are connected Desktop workspaces for local AI/RAG and Card creation.
Cards are also intended to connect to supported Open App workflows. Each handoff, conversion, and format must be named specifically; a Card does not mean every app can open every type or that every conversion is automatic.
What is still being defined
The category and identifier catalog is provisional. Product Design is resolving Source Card scope and type codes, Control/AI Generation and Experience Card definitions, the meaning of “Conv,” and the exact UCI contract. A future digital twin for physical cards is a Version 3.0 direction; current pages should not promise authenticity checks, market valuation, ownership transfer, or real-world value.
For the product-level explanation, return to Cards. For the supporting system view, see Cards and portable workflows.