Proposal: A Shared Semantic Layer
Executive Summary
This proposal prevents engineering effort from growing linearly with every new data feature. By defining business meaning once, we eliminate duplicated logic, ensure consistent reporting across dashboards and AI interfaces, and establish the foundation for intelligent automation.
This proposal is not about adding AI. AI simply exposed a platform capability that every future intelligent feature requires. We have one window to establish that capability before Gold-layer development begins.
Architectural Evolution
Current State (Fragmented Business Semantics)
Target State (Unified Semantic Layer)
The Core Problem: Undefined Business Meaning
A user asks the AI assistant: "Show me top customers in Europe by sales for Q3."
Executing the SQL query is trivial — the runtime does that reliably. The hard part is answering five business questions before the query runs:
Right now, there is nowhere in the platform where those five answers live together as a single source of truth.
Why Now? The Gold-Layer Window
```typescript filename="semantic-first-roadmap.ts"
// Proposed Engineering Sequence
const roadmap = [
"Phase 1: Finalize Semantic Registry & Projection Schema (Design Window)",
"Phase 2: Author Gold-Layer Tables aligned with Semantic Entities",
"Phase 3: Compile Prompt & Planner Views for Runtime + AI Agents",
];
```
Business Impact & ROI
• Single Source of Truth: Revenue, Customer, and Date definitions are authored once.
• Lower Maintenance: Column renames or table refactors update 1 row in the registry, zero prompt updates.
• AI Safety & Accuracy: Prevents AI agents from inventing SQL join paths or hallucinating column definitions.