Problem
Intent is repeated
The same domain meaning appears in schemas, services, APIs, UI models, permissions, jobs, and documentation. Each copy can drift from the others.
Cohesive Systems
Build software from a semantic system graph
Cohesive is a language family and compiler for defining a software system as a semantic system graph, then generating codebases and runtime artifacts from that graph.
Software meaning is scattered
Modern systems repeat the same intent across database schemas, backend models, API contracts, frontend state, background jobs, search indexes, integrations, infrastructure configuration, documentation, and tribal knowledge.
Over time, the codebase becomes the only source of truth, but that truth is distributed across files, frameworks, conventions, and implicit assumptions. AI sharpens the pressure: code generation gets cheaper, while system comprehension becomes the bottleneck.
Problem
Structure is implicit
Important behavior lives in framework conventions, scattered files, and local assumptions. The system exists, but its semantics are hard to inspect.
Problem
Agents infer too much
Development and operational agents are forced to reconstruct intent from implementation details instead of working from an explicit system model.
The Cohesive approach
Cohesive moves the source of truth above code into a semantic system graph. The graph describes the system's entities, transitions, invariants, relations, projections, APIs, workflows, presentation behavior, infrastructure requirements, and AI-facing semantics.
The graph is not documentation beside the system. It is the input to the compiler.
Step 1
Define the system
Capture entities, transitions, invariants, workflows, APIs, projections, presentation models, and infrastructure requirements in the graph.
Step 2
Generate the code
Compile the graph into codebases and runtime artifacts for existing databases, frameworks, workflow engines, APIs, and cloud infrastructure.
Step 3
Give agents the model
Expose the same graph as structured context so agents can extend, reason about, and operate the system with explicit constraints.
Graph-first, not code-derived
Many teams are trying to manage complexity by generating knowledge graphs from existing code. That helps with navigation, but it is still reverse engineering. The graph is after the fact.
Cohesive works in the opposite direction. The graph comes first. The code and runtime artifacts are generated from it.
Code-derived graph
Descriptive
A graph inferred from implementation is useful for comprehension, but it is downstream of code. It can encode accidental complexity and depends on inference.
Cohesive graph
Prescriptive
A graph defined before implementation becomes the source of truth. It is more deterministic, more formalized, and better suited to generation, verification, and system evolution.
A graph agents can read
Cohesive gives agents an explicit model of the system at both build time and runtime.
Build time
Development agents
Development agents can use the system graph as structured context for generating, extending, refactoring, and testing code. They work from declared semantics instead of inferring intent from scattered implementation details.
Runtime
Operational agents
Operational agents can use the same graph to understand available actions, state transitions, constraints, workflows, permissions, and effects. They operate against a semantic map of what the system is allowed to do.
A semantic layer above the stack
Cohesive does not replace your database, cloud provider, frontend framework, API protocol, workflow engine, or runtime. It defines the semantic layer above them.
The graph describes what the system is. The compiler handles how that system is projected into existing technologies.
Beyond interface definitions
Traditional interface definition languages define boundaries: messages, methods, schemas, endpoints, and contracts.
Cohesive extends that idea to operational semantics: what state may change, which invariants must hold, which effects may occur, which permissions apply, which projections exist, and how those definitions are realized across infrastructure.
Building Blocks
The Cohesive language family is organized into building blocks. Each block contributes part of the system graph, and each can be projected into concrete runtime artifacts.
Core defines the shared vocabulary. Entities, Relations, Processes, APIs, and Presentation define the behavior and interfaces of the system. Infrastructure and AI describe how the system is bound to runtime environments and made legible to agents.
Projected into your stack
The system graph is not tied to a single framework or runtime. Cohesive compiles semantic definitions into concrete artifacts across the technologies teams already use.