The Discovery Signal Entry Model defines the canonical structure of a Beacon-owned Discovery Signal. It establishes the minimum institutional components required to identify a signal, describe what was discovered, preserve its source and provenance, reference related canonical objects, record discovery metadata, track time and version, express status, and preserve relationships.
This page defines the object foundation established during Beacon Phase II. The later production architecture for signal types, lifecycle, identifiers, schemas, validation, provenance, authority, relationships, versioning, publication, records, methodology, and production now governs that object.
Beacon cannot define production rules until it defines what a production Discovery Signal is. The Entry Model provides that canonical object boundary.
Beacon's canonical production object is the Discovery Signal. Discovery Metadata is a Beacon-owned supporting structure that supports and describes that canonical object.
The Discovery Signal is institution-owned by Beacon. Referenced objects remain owned by their originating institutions or external sources.
A production Discovery Signal should contain sufficient information to establish identity, subject, discovery context, source authority, provenance, relationships, and lifecycle context without assuming authority over the object or information it references.
Identity distinguishes one Beacon Discovery Signal from every other Beacon object.
BEAC-YYYY-NNNN. The first production identifier is BEAC-2026-0001.Subject identifies what the Discovery Signal is about.
Signal Type classifies the nature of the discovery being recorded.
The initial governed Signal Type vocabulary is Information, Jurisdiction, Certification, Registry, Historical, Integrity, Trust, and Relationship.
BEAC-2026-0001, uses the primary Signal Type Certification.Source identifies where the discovered information originated.
Provenance preserves the traceable path between the Discovery Signal and the information that caused it to exist.
Discovery Signals may reference canonical objects maintained by other Suite institutions.
Discovery Metadata preserves the context needed to interpret, filter, trace, and rediscover the signal.
Time must distinguish when information was observed from when the Beacon object itself was created or changed.
Version identifies the governed state of the Beacon Discovery Signal over time.
Status records the current institutional state of the Discovery Signal.
Relationships connect a Discovery Signal to sources, canonical objects, other signals, workflow context, or later institutional activity.
Every Discovery Signal must preserve the distinction between Beacon ownership and source authority.
The Entry Model can be represented conceptually as the following object. This remains an architectural skeleton rather than a frozen machine-serialization schema.
{
"discovery_signal": {
"identity": {},
"subject": {},
"signal_type": "",
"source": {},
"provenance": {},
"canonical_references": [],
"discovery_metadata": {},
"timestamps": {},
"version": {},
"status": {},
"relationships": []
}
}
.schema.json constraints remain intentionally open.The Entry Model establishes structural categories before finalizing which fields are mandatory in every production object.
Phase II resolved the institutional rules surrounding the Entry Model. Only implementation details that were deliberately not frozen remain open.
.schema.json dialect and constraintsA Discovery Signal may describe or reference information with authority outside Beacon. Beacon's act of discovery does not alter that authority.
The Entry Model served as the dependency foundation for Beacon's completed Phase II production architecture.
Those later architecture pages now govern the downstream rules while preserving the Discovery Signal as Beacon's canonical object.
The Entry Model has now been exercised through Beacon's first production Discovery Signal, BEAC-2026-0001.
The production object demonstrates the Entry Model's identity, subject, signal type, source, provenance, canonical references, discovery metadata, timestamps, version, status, relationships, and authority boundary in governed institutional use.
The Discovery Signal Entry Model is now part of Beacon's production-proven institutional architecture.