Baselines and primitives
Industries, schemas, layers, primitives and parameters: the shared map.
In short
Every company in an industry is described with the same building blocks. The industry's schema lists its primitives (standard business functions like Estimating or Client billing), grouped into parts of the business. Each primitive sits on one of five layers and has typed parameters. That shared list is the baseline: what a company is mapped against and what coverage is measured on.
Read a schema with get_schema. When your agent uploads, it gets the same structure as an upload contract from get_mapping_guide and may set primitive to a key from it. When it does not, System Atlas places the item itself.
Structure
The building blocks. Every company in an industry is described with the same ones, so companies can be compared part by part.
- Industry
- A group of companies that share the same primitives. Each industry has its own schema, maintained by the consultant.Example: Construction, Staffing.
- Schema
- The standard architecture of an industry: its primitives, parameters, connection types, module catalog and interfaces. Schemas are versioned; publishing a new version never changes an existing atlas.
- Taxonomy
- How the schema is grouped: top-level primitives are the parts of the business, and the primitives under them are the standard functions inside each part. The Standard architecture page is the taxonomy of the industry.Example: Money and obligations → Client billing and invoices.
- Business architecture
- The lens on the people, process and decisions layers: the parts of the business, the standard functions inside each, who does them, how work flows between them and who decides. The business architecture of two companies in the same industry is comparable primitive by primitive.Example: Winning work → Estimating → done by two estimators in a spreadsheet, reviewed by the owner.
- System architecture
- The lens on the software and data layers: the systems of record, the tools under each business function, the records they keep and the integrations between them. Every business primitive is carried by system components; a manual hand-off is a gap in the system architecture.Example: Estimating → Excel; job costing → QuickBooks; no integration between them, so budgets are re-keyed.
- Layer
- One of five lenses every primitive belongs to. Layers are how the atlas answers 'who does it, how, with what, on what data, and who decides'.peopleRoles, teams, crews and the people outside the company who take part.processThe work itself: steps, hand-offs, approvals and recovery.softwareThe tools and systems that carry the work.dataThe records the company keeps and the facts it relies on.decisionsRules, authority limits, policies and the places judgement is applied.
- Primitive
- A standard business function every company in the industry has in some form. Primitives are the rows of every comparison. What separates companies is how each primitive is configured, not whether it exists.Example: Estimating, Worker onboarding, Client billing.
- Parameter
- A named, typed fact about a primitive that can be filled per company and compared across companies.Example: Bid win rate (percent), Estimating method (enum: spreadsheet, estimating software, outsourced).textFree text.numberA number with an optional unit.moneyAn amount in a currency.percentA share, 0 to 100.booleanYes or no.enumOne of a fixed list of options.dateA calendar date.
- Module
- A unit of capability under a primitive that does one job and maps to a Business OS module. Modules nest into sub-modules with no depth limit.Example: Estimating → Estimate builder → Takeoff, Pricing, Bid assembly.
- Sub-module
- A part of a module. Gaps show up at every level of the breakdown.
- Interface
- A defined input or output where a module connects to another module, a person or an outside tool. Interfaces are the edges of the graph at module level.Example: Takeoff takes in drawings from the client and sends quantities to Pricing.directionin or out.carriesThe data fields that cross the interface.counterpartyWho or what is on the other side.triggerevent, schedule or manual.flow typeWhat moves: money, information, material, work, energy or control.
- Connection type
- A named kind of link the schema allows between primitives, with its flow type and the layers it usually joins.Example: Sends estimate (information, process → process); Invoices (money).
Coverage and gaps
The module catalog is the should-have list; a company's map is the has list. The gap is the difference, ranked by impact.
- Module coverage
- A company's state for each module and sub-module, with the tool or person that covers it.haveThe module exists and all its sub-modules and interfaces work, through a tool or a person.partialIt exists but is missing sub-modules or interfaces.manualDone by people with no system behind it.missingNobody does it.not_neededDoes not apply to this business model.
- Interface coverage
- A company's state for each interface.connectedData crosses automatically.manual_handoffSomeone copies the data across.missingNothing crosses.
- Gap
- A missing or partial module, a broken interface or a compliance gap, ranked by how many other modules depend on it and how many competitors already have it. Each gap links to the Business OS module that fills it.
- Atlas completeness
- The share of the schema's primitives that have at least one component mapped for a company.
- Layer health
- Completeness per layer, so a thin or overloaded layer is visible at a glance.
- Baseline
- The industry median and range for a parameter, computed from public and published values once five or more companies are mapped.