Concepts
Canon is built on a few core ideas that distinguish it from traditional documentation tools. Understanding these concepts will help you get the most out of the platform.
Core Thesis
Documentation fails because it's a write-once artifact. Canon treats docs as living programs — all markdown is input, AI agents are the runtime, code is the ground truth, and the repo is the execution environment.
Specs define intent — what should be built. Code reveals reality — what actually shipped. Other docs (ADRs, guides, READMEs) provide context — why decisions were made. The platform closes the loop across all three, continuously evaluating whether intent matches reality and keeping context accurate.
Key Concepts
Spec-Driven Development
The structured artifact model that makes specs machine-readable. Proposals, sections, acceptance criteria, and tasks — all in markdown, all tracked.
Living Specs
The feedback loop that keeps documentation alive. PMs write specs, agents create tickets, engineers write code, agents verify implementation, docs auto-update.
Delta Tracking
How Canon tracks changes through status transitions and hidden comments rather than rewriting specs.
Agent Mesh
The agent architecture — from single-repo agents to cross-repo coordination to the org-wide knowledge brain.
Spec Coverage
The metric model that measures what percentage of spec acceptance criteria are verified against actual code.