---
title: "Mapping"
description: "how a source object becomes a registered kind: an entity, a content item, a fact (a reading, a claim, a connection, a vector, a control result) or a definition; with its connections, identifiers, the two times and readings"
section: concepts
address: /concepts/mapping
contract: 0476e35e6e275db5
---

# Mapping

how a source object becomes a registered kind: an entity, a content item, a fact (a reading, a claim, a connection, a vector, a control result) or a definition; with its connections, identifiers, the two times and readings

[figure: Mapping is a row at platform scope. The drawing shows its fields and the objects that they point at.]

| property | value |
|---|---|
| kind | row |
| scope | platform |
| key | the source object |
| store | postgres |
| family | sources |



## Fields


| field | type | required | note |
|---|---|---|---|
| `source_object` | [SourceObject](/concepts/sourceobject) | yes |  |
| `becomes` | [Kind](/concepts/kind) | yes |  |
| `connections` | [MappingConnection](/concepts/mappingconnection) | yes |  |
| `identifiers` | [MappingIdentifier](/concepts/mappingidentifier) | yes |  |
| `header_prefix` | `text` | no | put before every identity value of the shared header (the author's account, the community, the parent, the thread's root): the platform's own prefix, so a header id compares with the own ids the identifiers' prefixes write |
| `times` | `{text:text}` | yes | which fill the two times |
| `readings` | [KindOfMeasure](/concepts/kindofmeasure) | yes |  |
| `required_fields` | `[text]` | yes |  |
| `self_asserted` | `[text]` | yes |  |
| `texts` | `[text]` | no | the fields kept as long texts of the entity the row becomes: each written as a claim stated by the source under the field's name, and given meaning under the model, so a bio, a description or a readme is searchable by meaning and grounds a later capture |
| `kinds` | `{text:text}` | no | the source's own kind words, each to a registered kind of entity, when the object carries a kind field |
| `kind` | [KindOfEntity](/concepts/kindofentity) | no | the kind of entity every row of the object becomes, for an object whose rows carry no kind field (a table of accounts, of communities, of domains); kinds and kind are never both set |
| `lists` | [ListMapping](/concepts/listmapping) | no | list fields whose items become entities of their own |



## Routes that use it
No route takes or returns Mapping directly. The record holds it, and the objects that point at it reach it.