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the MAZE

The self-addressing ternary knowledge net: a place for every statement exists before it is placed, computed from its content.

documentation in four layers · maze.swarp.nl · Leiden, 12 Sept 2026

This is not a flat manual but documentation in four layers, for four readers: whoever uses it, whoever wants to grasp the idea, whoever builds it, and whoever wants to go further. Each layer carries a label saying how long it lasts — and for the MAZE that distinction is the very point: the address follows from the content (enduring), not from the form (which moves).

enduringOutlives a rebuild — the idea, the five rules, the model. Whoever rebuilds the MAZE reads this as the brief.
tracks the codeDescribes how it is built right now — the screens, the crown, the API. This can age.

Layer 1 — for the user1What you do with it tracks the code

Ask a question. On maze.swarp.nl you ask something in plain language. The MAZE computes which address belongs to your question and shows what lives there — with the source (the receipt). It answers only from what has actually been placed.

Empty is empty — and that means something. If the MAZE finds nothing at an address, it invents nothing. An empty place is an open question: a place that exists but has no inhabitant yet. This is how the net shows what it does not yet know — visible on the discoveries.

Walk around. From an address you can go coarser, finer, to the opposite, or to the neighbours. Every step is remembered as a trace — well-trodden paths become visible. You write an address as value@depth (for example 820@9): a route of ternary moves (−1, 0, +1) from coarse to fine.

Layer 2 — for the thinker2The idea & the five rules enduring

The MAZE is not a search engine and not a database. It is a net in which every statement gets an address computed from its own content — and in which similar things therefore come to live near one another of their own accord.

Imagine a vast card index in which a card's place is chosen not by you but by what is written on it. Two cards about the same thing end up together — not because someone filed them together, but because their content yields the same address. The place exists before the inhabitant: every possible fact already has a computable address, even when nothing is there yet.

At the core are five rules that are never broken. They make the net trustworthy and re-verifiable, and they outlive every rebuild:

  1. 1The address is computed from the content, never from the form of the description. Saying the same thing twice yields the same address twice.
  2. 2No shortening. No cap, timeout or "optimisation" may cut the chain short. Before every bulk load, a spread test: a coder that too often yields the same address is broken.
  3. 3One gate. A question and the material pass through exactly the same entrance. What a question addresses, a fact addresses the same way.
  4. 4Counters steer nothing. How often something has been visited or consulted never changes the address or what is retrieved.
  5. 5An address is never rewritten. Deepening extends the route; the prefix stays. What once lives somewhere stays there.

Because the address follows from the content, the net is re-verifiable: anyone can compute the address of a statement themselves; there is no authority deciding where something belongs. And so the MAZE never invents content, never shortens the chain, never lets counters steer the address, and rewrites nothing — these are not limitations but the guarantees themselves.

Layer 3 — for the builder3How it works — the name bridge, the crown & API

The name bridge — how a question finds the right book enduring

A question often names a thing that already lives in the net ("what is democracy?"). The address of that thing is then the address of the answer. The name bridge recognises such a name — via a language bridge where needed (democratie → Democracy) — and goes to that subject's home. This is not a second entrance for material (rule 3 holds): it is navigation for a question. There the MAZE reads the source and answers with literal, verified quotes; if the question names nothing the net knows, it says so honestly.

The crown — the question side, everywhere tracks the code

The full store of addresses is large and lives on a disk. To let the MAZE be queried anywhere, it carries a crown: the top, well-trodden rings of the net, small enough to travel and read-only. You can ask questions of it; placing is only possible in the full store. This is how the question side is always open, even where the whole disk cannot come along.

The API tracks the code

The MAZE also exists to be queried by programs and agents. Every answer carries its receipt; you cite addresses as v@d and link them as https://maze.swarp.nl/#v@d.

post /api/gesprek
Ask a question in plain language; the net answers only from what lives at addresses, and says honestly when an area is empty.
get /api/retrieve?v=&d=
What lives at address v@d — the inhabitants with their source.
get /api/gesprek-samenhang?v=&d=
The surroundings of an address: coarser, finer, opposite, neighbours, well-trodden traces.
get /api/ontdekkingen
The open questions of the nightly discovery loop, the growth and the sharpest empty places.
post /mcp
Model Context Protocol (for agents). Tools: vraag, zoek, adres, samenhang, open_vragen, laad, stem, verslag.