Canonical Source and Derived Views

A trustworthy system must know where canonical meaning lives.

In QLens, canonical research content belongs to repository objects and their governed metadata. Search indexes, rendered HTML, graphs, dashboards, caches, embeddings, and AI-generated summaries are derived views.

Derived views may be rebuilt. They may be wrong. They may omit context. They must not silently become the source of record.

This principle prevents a common failure: a convenient representation gradually acquiring authority that belongs to the underlying evidence and objects.