Data Structure Protocol (DSP)

DSP builds a dependency graph of project entities in a .dsp/ directory. Each entity (module, function, external dependency) gets a UID, description, import list, and export index. The graph answers: what exists, why it exists, what depends on what, and who uses what.

DSP is NOT documentation for humans or AST dump. It captures meaning (purpose), boundaries (imports/exports), and reasons for connections (why).

Agent Prompt

Embed this context when working on a DSP-tracked project:

This project uses DSP (Data Structure Protocol). The .dsp/ directory is the entity graph of this project: modules, functions, dependencies, public API. It is your long-term memory of the code structure.

Core rules:

1. Before changing code — find affected entities via dsp-cli search, find-by-source, or read-toc. Read their description and imports to understand context.
2. When creating a file/module — call dsp-cli create-object. For each exported function — create-function (with --owner). Register exports via create-shared.
3. When adding an import — call dsp-cli add-import with a brief why. For external dependencies — first create-object --kind external if the entity doesn't exist yet.
4. When removing import / export / file — call remove-import, remove-shared, remove-entity respectively. Cascade cleanup is automatic.