Use this issue to track InQL RFC 031, proposed in PR #60 at docs/rfcs/031_inspection_artifacts.md.
Area
- Specification (RFCs)
- Documentation
Summary
RFC 031 defines local inspection APIs and artifacts for InQL relational evidence. It records how tools and authors can inspect plan structure, lineage, schema flow, metadata attachments, adapter requirements, quality observations, profile assessments, and execution observations without requiring a hosted catalog or governance service.
Motivation
InQL's evidence story should be usable locally. Authors need explainable artifacts for review, debugging, tests, CI, and agents. Without a common inspection contract, every tool would create a different partial report format.
Proposal sketch
Define local inspection APIs and serialized artifact shapes that expose evidence attached to semantic targets. Artifacts should be versioned, deterministic where possible, and explicit about unknown or unavailable evidence.
Alternatives considered
The draft rejects relying only on formatted prose, backend explain plans, hosted control-plane APIs, or ad hoc JSON fragments from individual subsystems.
Impact / compatibility
This is additive. Existing plans may produce limited inspection output until child evidence RFCs are implemented. Consumers must treat unknown evidence as unknown, not as empty or successful evidence.
Implementation notes (optional)
Review PR #60 for the draft. This RFC is the local consumption layer for RFCs 028-030 and later observation, coverage, quality, bundle, and export RFCs.
Checklist
Use this issue to track InQL RFC 031, proposed in PR #60 at
docs/rfcs/031_inspection_artifacts.md.Area
Summary
RFC 031 defines local inspection APIs and artifacts for InQL relational evidence. It records how tools and authors can inspect plan structure, lineage, schema flow, metadata attachments, adapter requirements, quality observations, profile assessments, and execution observations without requiring a hosted catalog or governance service.
Motivation
InQL's evidence story should be usable locally. Authors need explainable artifacts for review, debugging, tests, CI, and agents. Without a common inspection contract, every tool would create a different partial report format.
Proposal sketch
Define local inspection APIs and serialized artifact shapes that expose evidence attached to semantic targets. Artifacts should be versioned, deterministic where possible, and explicit about unknown or unavailable evidence.
Alternatives considered
The draft rejects relying only on formatted prose, backend explain plans, hosted control-plane APIs, or ad hoc JSON fragments from individual subsystems.
Impact / compatibility
This is additive. Existing plans may produce limited inspection output until child evidence RFCs are implemented. Consumers must treat unknown evidence as unknown, not as empty or successful evidence.
Implementation notes (optional)
Review PR #60 for the draft. This RFC is the local consumption layer for RFCs 028-030 and later observation, coverage, quality, bundle, and export RFCs.
Checklist