How To Read O2A

This site is the public O2A semantic artifact: the place where the shared meanings that make O2A readable across organizations and products are stated. This page is the reader's path through it — how to approach the pages, in what order, and what to look for on each one.

#Reading Purpose

Approach the site with these expectations in mind before opening any single page:

• Read O2A as a semantic standard.
• Read each page as a statement surface for meanings, relationships, attributes, constraints, lifecycles, actions, and derived financial views.
• Read the public pages together; no single page carries the whole model.
• Use the public pages first when learning the model.

#First Reading Path

If this is your first pass through O2A, follow this sequence from identity, to the whole surface, to specific terms:

• Start with What Is O2A for the identity of the standard.
• Read Model Map to see the whole surface at once.
• Open Entities to read any concept end-to-end — definition, statements, operations, lifecycle, financial view, configuration.
• Use Concept Index when looking for a specific term.
• Use Glossary for short definitions.

#Page Roles

Each section plays a distinct role; this is what to expect from each:

• Foundations — the principles every later page builds on, including the shared lifecycle and action contracts.
• Entities — one integrated page per concept (Node, Offering, Contract, and so on), each carrying its full statements, operations, lifecycle, financial view, and configuration.
• Configuration — the governed setup concerns, the dependency DAG, and the per-artifact pages.
• Lifecycles — the cross-cutting index of every lifecycle in the standard, with deep links into each entity's lifecycle section.
• Actions — the cross-cutting index of every governed operation, with deep links into each entity's operations section.
• Financial Views — the cross-cutting financial concepts: source truth, classification, period scope, shared cost allocation, recurring periods. The per-entity views (Node P&L, Offering cost of goods) live on their respective entity pages.
• Concept Index and Glossary — direct lookups for terms.

#What Each Entity Page Contains

An entity page follows the same shape — blocks only appear where they apply:

• Definition — what the concept is, in plain language.
• Why It Matters — the role it plays in the rest of the standard.
• How It Works — the key mechanism.
• Statements — the precise rules.
• Operations — the governed actions on the concept.
• Lifecycle — how its state changes.
• Financial View — how money is read against it.
• Configuration — the Configuration Artifacts that govern its behaviour.
• Related — neighbours in the model.

#Release

Read this page for release status rather than for learning the model; use it only for the situation below:

• Use Release Notes to see how settled an area is and which topics remain open.

#What The Standard Governs

Keep in mind what O2A does and does not govern, so implementation material is read in its proper place:

• O2A describes meanings.
• Product and software delivery choices live outside the standard.
• An implementation may use O2A meanings; it does not change them.