Epistemic Types

Uncertainty, confidence, and provenance as first-class program data.

Epistemic Types

Epistemic computing is still the part of Sounio that most clearly sets it apart. The public contract is narrower than the full research vision, but it is real: the checked artifact, current fixtures, and refusal tests all give you concrete ground to stand on.

What is currently demonstrated

  • The language still models Knowledge-style values as a first-class idea.
  • The current checked path proves explicit unwrap boundaries and confidence-based refusal behavior.
  • The vancomycin and COVID fixtures remain the best compact demonstrations of why epistemic typing matters in this repo.

Where to read and where to verify

  • docs/reference/KNOWLEDGE_REFERENCE.md describes the larger epistemic API model.
  • docs/research/vancomycin-uncertainty.md explains the strongest public case study in detail.
  • self-hosted/check/epistemic.sio is the implementation-facing directory to inspect for current checker work.
  • tests/run-pass/vancomycin_propagation.sio, tests/run-pass/covid_2020_kernel.sio, and the related compile-fail fixtures are the current proof points.

Minimal epistemic pattern

let dose = Knowledge { value: 42.0 }
let accepted: f64 = dose.unwrap("demo boundary")

How to document this area responsibly

  • Separate the checked contract from the broader research model.
  • Use fixtures and refusal tests for claims about compile-time behavior.
  • Treat provenance, confidence, and uncertainty as part of the language story even when a particular artifact exposes only part of the full model.