Famulus Universe

The entrance to the Famulus universe

Famulus UniverseFrom the WWW to the WWK

What the WWW was for documents, the WWK is meant to become for knowledge: a network of addressed, fallible holdings examined by the scientific community, connected by references to their evidence.

Famulus is AI that shows its grounds: every answer is the conclusion of an argument from addressed evidence, and what the evidence does not carry is marked as not validated.

FilmStart nowwith captions · 3 min

The Famulus universe in numbers, as of 12 November 2026

29collections in the shared store
11editions with a public page
3Famulus experts
5issues of the series Famulus Expertise
26typeset papers

Famulus in brief

The same three times, at growing length. The wording is that of the canonical account.

In one sentence

Famulus is AI that shows its grounds: every answer is the conclusion of an argument from addressed evidence, and what the evidence does not carry is marked as not validated.

In one paragraph

It is a new kind of scholarly assistance: not an answer generator but a knowledge ground. Every answer is the conclusion of an argument from addressed evidence; what the evidence does not carry is marked as not validated. Famulus serves science, cultural heritage and a society's understanding of itself. The name comes from the history of scholarship: the famulus prepares material, counts, orders and checks – and does not judge. Judgement stays with the scholar.

The core

Validation follows the standards of best explanation and justification of the discipline concerned. This is the necessary core of everything in Famulus – agents, rule sets, reference collections and every expert. Famulus sets no truth standard of its own; it makes a field's standards explicit, checkable and revisable, and applies them proposition by proposition.

Read on

Six chapters: the path of a statement

From the address of a passage to the network. Every chapter names one thought, one way in and all components with their state.

Chapter I

Reference

Grounded · Opened holdings

Every document, page and segment has a permanent fr: address; citations are composed only from recorded bibliographic data. Collections in the PDAI format with sentence, lemma and name indices answering in milliseconds.

features 5 and 10 of the canonical account

Introduction to Famulus Reference →

All components 242 in use · 1 built

Knowledge ground and addresses 4

  • in usein the own network

    Famulus Reference

    Knowledge ground, fr: addresses, citation, provenance; shared store (DuckLake) and reference service

    29 collections in the shared store

    State: läuft (29 Sammlungen im gemeinsamen Speicher, Stand 11.11.2026; am 23.10.2026 waren es acht)

  • builtin the own network

    Address order famulus-ref/2 and register

    The address order famulus-ref/2 and its register without a centre: every object has exactly one fr: address; every reference point publishes its own signed register.

    35 namespaces at the own reference point

  • public

    Technical specification of Famulus Reference

  • public

    The shared store (DuckLake)

Opened holdings and editions 14

Capture, format, reading 3

Method 3

  • public

    Famulus Reference

    17 pp.

  • in the own network

    The Famulus Data Layer

    12 pp.

  • in the own network

    Famulus Register and Dossiers

    18 pp.

Chapter II

Validation

Justified · Validated sentence by sentence

An answer is the conclusion of an argument: addressed evidence, a declared chain of reasoning and its validation. A sentence is factually validated when the propositions it expresses follow from registered grounds, none is refuted and none contradicts an earlier sentence or a register. Every other sentence is not validated – no verdict of falsity.

features 1 and 3 of the canonical account

Famulus Proof →

All components 194 in use · 2 built · 1 draft · 1 future work

Justification 4

Sentence by sentence 4

  • in usepublic

    Famulus Lektor

    Sentence-by-sentence check of the factual validity of a text

  • public

    Factual validity (German)

  • builtin the own network

    Famulus Lektor: argument and assent

    Reconstruction of the argument of a paper or issue (thesis, premises, lines of proof, evidence at its place); the page on which the author agrees point by point or declines with a reason

    State: Stand 11.11.2026: gebaut; das Argument von vier der fünf Hefte ist rekonstruiert (71 bis 139 Punkte je Heft vorgelegt), keine Zustimmung erteilt

  • draftin the own network

    Argument reconstruction of arbitrary texts

    Reconstruction, check of gaps and stringency, argument schemes after style templates

    State: Entwurf (Relationsbenchmark vorhanden)

Method institution 7

Language institution 4

  • in usein the own network

    Language institution (LWgrammar)

    Register of the rules of usage, justified normalisation

  • builtin the own network

    Latin technical terminology (LWgrammar)

    Special collection “Kepler: A Finding Dictionary of Geometrical and Astronomical Terms”; registers on the history of astronomy and on causality

  • public

    Writing guide (LWgrammar)

  • public

    Wittgensteinian Grammar and OED Dictionaries for AI

    26 pp.

Chapter III

Experts

An open network of Famulus experts

Experts are services with certified knowledge of a domain that every agent and notebook can consult through one interface (Model Context Protocol).

feature 7 of the canonical account

The catalogue of Famulus experts →

All components 134 in use · 2 draft · 4 future work

The experts 3

  • in usepublic

    Astronomy expert

    Historical planetary models, the reading of the sky after DE441, star catalogues, maps and animations

    3 comparisons measured, 2 passed (as of 2026-10-23)

    State: läuft, Vergleiche gemessen (Almagest gegen van Gents Rechner: größte Abweichung 6,8·10⁻¹² Bogenminuten; DE441 gegen Horizons: 0,035 Bogenminuten); Modelle ohne belegte Parameter (Kopernikus, Kepler, babylonische Schrittfunktionen) stehen als Lücke

  • in usepublic

    Calendar expert

    Calendar conversions for normalisation, without guessed dates

    0 comparisons measured, 0 passed (as of 2026-10-23)

    State: läuft; noch kein gemessener Vergleich

  • draftpublic

    Sundial geometry expert

    Typology of ancient sundials by shadow surface and body form; 3-D models of the conic sundial

    2 comparisons measured, 2 passed (as of 2026-10-23)

    State: Entwurf; zwei Vergleiche gemessen (Rechenbeispiel Rhodos: größte Abweichung 0,0009 d; Solstitiallinien von 35 gescannten Kegeluhren: Median 3,2 %); Kugel-, Zylinder- und ebene Uhren nur als Typologie

Catalogue and description 4

  • draftin the own network

    Register and catalogue of the experts

    Open, fast, curated admission with a life cycle; catalogue with domain, state, gates, metrics and gaps per expert

    State: Entwurf (Register und Katalog angelegt, die eigenen Experten in der Bibliothek famulus-experts eingetragen; Experten anderer Einrichtungen: noch keiner; Aufnahme durch Fachgutachten: Ausbau)

  • public

    The astronomy expert: state and comparisons

  • public

    The sundial geometry expert: state and comparisons

  • in the own network

    The Famulus Astronomy Expert

    18 pp.

Special collections 2

Kinds planned as future work 4

  • future workin the own network

    Language experts (e.g. Nahuatl, Florentine Codex)

    Lexicon, grammar and readings of a language

  • future workin the own network

    Gazetteer

    Place lemmata per collection exist; an expert with historical name forms and positions

  • future workin the own network

    Ancient geography

    Ptolemy's Geography, ancient roads and itineraries, the Stadiasmus of Patara

    State: Quellen in PDAI erschlossen (Edition der Geographie 2006, Defaux 2017, Of Paths and Places 2017, Longitude 2016, Berggren/Jones 2000); Experte: Ausbau; Stadiasmus von Patara: Literatur fehlt

  • future workin the own network

    Disciplinary terminologies, coin databases, further special collections

    Connection of external thesauri, repositories and databases

Chapter IV

Working medium

Working medium

Famulus Notebook (private, group, public), the Lektor's sentence-by-sentence check, and the path from notebook to paper.

feature 11 of the canonical account

Famulus Notebook →

All components 144 in use · 1 built · 1 future work

Notebook and Harness 4

Scores and agents 3

Showing and reconstructing 3

Famulus in everyday research 4

Chapter V

Publication

Publication with a quality seal

A notebook becomes an issue of the series Famulus Expertise (published by OpenScienceTechnology, open access). An issue carries the quality seal when three necessary conditions hold: it has completed the pass through the Famulus Lektor, in which the author agrees explicitly to every thesis, every premise and every step of the proof; every statement about a source rests on a sharp Famulus reference as grounding evidence; and the methodological criteria of argumentative correctness are fulfilled, measured by quality gates.

feature 12 of the canonical account

Read an issue: Euler No. 1 →

All components 121 in use · 1 built

The series Famulus Expertise 6

From notebook to paper 4

News 2

Chapter VI

WWK

The knowledge network: WWK – World-Wide Knowledge

What the World Wide Web did for documents, the address order of Famulus does for knowledge. On the Web every page was given an address, and every page could refer to every other.

feature 13 of the canonical account

Feature 13 in the canonical account →

All components 163 built · 1 future work · 1 perspective

Built 3

  • builtin the own network

    Register without a centre

    The address order famulus-ref/2 and its register without a centre: every object has exactly one fr: address; every reference point publishes its own signed register.

    node famulus-hu-berlin (fr-xyfxite6dhhdqnt4pe5r)

  • builtin the own network

    Notebook addresses (fr:notebook/…)

    Notebooks, cells and results as objects of the address order famulus-ref/2; references between notebooks

    State: Stand 11.11.2026: gebaut (Grammatik 2.6, Auflösung am eigenen Reference-Punkt); Beanspruchung einzelner Notebook-Projekte im verteilten Register: Ausbau

  • builtin the own network

    Import of published issues

    The working environment for Famulus notebooks; issues of the series Famulus Expertise are imported by their address.

Interfaces for agents (MCP) 11

  • famulus-referencenamespace reference · 24 toolsin the own network
  • famulus-expertisenamespace expertise · 13 toolsin the own network
  • famulus-astronomy-expertnamespace astronomy · 9 toolsin the own network
  • famulus-calendar-expertnamespace calendar · 4 toolsin the own network
  • famulus-sundial-geometry-expertnamespace sundial_geometry · 6 toolsin the own network
  • causal-architectnamespace causalin the own network
  • famulus-viz-referencenamespace visualization · 8 toolsin the own network
  • lwgrammarnamespace lwgrammar · 16 toolsin the own network
  • famulus-spacynamespace spacy · 7 toolsin the own network
  • hamanamespace hamain the own network
  • famulus-benchmarknamespace models · 11 toolsin the own network

Future work and perspective 2

  • future workin the own network

    Reference points of other institutions

    Federation of the same service across institutions

    registered: 0

    State: Ausbau (Verzeichnis angelegt, leer)

  • perspectivein the own network

    WWK – World-Wide Knowledge

    Knowledge network of addressed, examined holdings across institutions

    State: Perspektive; setzt Reference-Punkte anderer Einrichtungen voraus (Ausbau)

The foundation is in place

Built today: the address order, the register without a centre within the project's own network, the addresses of notebooks, the import of published issues; reference points of other institutions are future work.

29collections with addresses
35namespaces in the own register
5issues, importable by their address
11interfaces for agents
0reference points of other institutions

The Web grew because a reference cost one line; in the WWK the reference to a piece of evidence costs one line as well, and a published issue can be fetched by its address, run again and cited.

That validated holdings will connect in this way about as fast as the pages of the Web once did is a perspective of the project, not a measured finding.

Next

  • future workin the own network

    Reference points of other institutions

    Federation of the same service across institutions

    State: Ausbau (Verzeichnis angelegt, leer)

  • perspectivein the own network

    WWK – World-Wide Knowledge

    Knowledge network of addressed, examined holdings across institutions

    State: Perspektive; setzt Reference-Punkte anderer Einrichtungen voraus (Ausbau)

State and limits

The delimitations of the canonical account. “In use” means: in use in the project's own network. “Future work” means: described and intended, not built.

  • in use
  • built
  • draft
  • future work
  • perspective
  • public
  • in the own network
  • not published
  • No claim to validity from retrieval. A sentence that was found shows that it stands in the collection, not that what it asserts is true.
  • “Not validated” does not mean “false”. Missing evidence justifies nothing and refutes nothing.
  • No truth standard of its own. Famulus makes a field's standards of best explanation and justification explicit, checkable and revisable; it does not replace them.
  • Only propositions are true or false. Entailment and contradiction hold between propositions, not between sentences.
  • No assurance without a basis. Data protection and legal conformity are properties of the design, not a certification; federation, external experts, literature watch and further method modules are future work, not holdings.
  • The quality seal is no guarantee of truth. It says that an issue has passed a procedure, that its statements about sources can be checked against sharp references and that the gates of the series are fulfilled. The author alone is responsible for the statements; an objection that convinces is annotated in a new version.
  • WWK is a perspective, not a holding. The address order, the register without a centre and the addresses of notebooks are built and in use in the project's own network. A worldwide network of other reference points does not exist; how fast it grows is an expectation, not a measurement. “Examined by the community” means: open to criticism and justified by the standards of the field, not: infallible.
  • Judgement stays with the expert. Famulus prepares, checks and names limits; it does not decide.

Open points of this page

  • The wording on the WWK (feature 13 of the canonical account) has not yet been read by the author.
  • The experts catalogue was last compiled on 2026-10-23.
  • The English roles of the components, the English delimitations and the English card texts are translations from the German canon and are to be checked by the author; the German text is authoritative.
  • The film of this language has captions only; there is no narration that passes the listening checks.
  • gap: Address order famulus-ref/2 and register: the page famulus-reference-register.html is not part of the published documentation 'reference'

Three ways in

For researchersThe reading path of the front page, from the overview to the method, and the editions Famulus works on.To the front page →For institutions with collectionsHow a collection becomes a reference: address, citation, provenance and validation records for every item.To the introduction →For developers and agentsThe interfaces of the reference service and the address order in detail.To the specification →

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