Snapshots

Snapshots are the deployment unit for governed terminology. A profile can change often during review, but runtime consumers should use a stable immutable snapshot.

Editable profile state → reviewed change → published snapshot → binding runtime activation

Why snapshots exist

Without snapshots, every runtime call would depend on mutable database state. That makes search behavior hard to reproduce and rollback.

Snapshots give SkeinRank a safer model:

Reproducibility

Runtime behavior can be tied to the exact terminology version used during a query or enrichment job.

Rollback

If a terminology change adds noise, a binding can roll back to a previous known-good snapshot.

Review boundary

Draft changes can be reviewed and tested before they become part of runtime search behavior.

Audit trail

Operators can answer which canonical terms, aliases, and rules were active at a point in time.

What a snapshot should contain

A runtime snapshot should include the data needed to canonicalize and explain a query without asking the mutable profile editor for live state.

Typical contents:

• profile identifier and version metadata;
• canonical values and slots;
• aliases and normalized forms;
• stop lists and guardrails;
• approved ambiguity decisions;
• binding policy references;
• checksum or content identity;
• publish metadata and audit references.

Binding activation

A binding can pin one active runtime snapshot:

{
  "binding_id": 42,
  "profile_name": "infra_incidents",
  "index_name": "company_incidents",
  "active_snapshot": "infra_incidents@2026-05-30T21-00Z",
  "snapshot_status": "ready"
}

That lets different bindings move at different speeds:

binding A → snapshot S3
binding B → snapshot S2
binding C → snapshot S1

This matters when teams need staged rollout, blue/green validation, or tenant-specific terminology.

Operational rule

Use the database-backed profile editor for governance. Use published snapshots for runtime.

Governance path = mutable, reviewable, auditable
Runtime path = immutable, pinned, reproducible