A text is a composed document: an essay, paper, survey, or other sustained piece of writing. Where terms define and concepts expose, texts compose — they bring together multiple terms and concepts into a sustained argument, narrative, or analysis.

Texts are the composition layer of a knowledge system. A text about digital notetaking composes terms like “Zettelkasten,” “evergreen note,” and “atomicity” into an argument about how concept chunking works. The text is not a container for new definitions (those belong in term files per the one-concept-per-file principle) but a structure that relates existing definitions to each other and to something new.

In the ASR, texts live in texts/ directories within disciplines or topics. They have full document structure: sections, arguments, citations, and conclusions. They are the primary vehicle for knowledge that requires sustained exposition — claims that cannot be reduced to a single definition or concept entry.

Texts are where research results land. When an agent surveys external literature, the deliverable is a text. When a discipline needs its methods explained, the explanation is a text. When ideas need to be connected across disciplines, the connection is argued in a text. This makes texts the primary unit of knowledge accretion beyond the term/concept level.

  • term — defines a word; the vocabulary that texts draw on
  • concept — develops an idea; the building blocks that texts compose
  • topic — the area of inquiry a text belongs to