Kival is a collaborative knowledge system for organizations. Its model is deliberately small: workspaces, objects, versions, connections, history, and access.
Workspaces
A workspace is a boundary around shared knowledge. Objects, relationships, discussions, memberships, and access all exist within one.
A workspace can represent a team, project, organization, or another area in which knowledge should be developed together. Access to one workspace does not imply access to another.
Objects and versions
An object is the stable identity of a piece of knowledge. It might represent a decision, project brief, runbook, research note, source, or shared instruction. Kival does not require objects to belong to predefined document types.
The object's authored state lives in immutable versions. A version contains its title, body, metadata, author, and creation time. Editing an object appends a new version and makes it current; earlier versions remain part of the object's history.
This separation gives changing knowledge continuity. Relationships, access, discussions, attachments, and history stay attached to the same object as its contents develop.
See Objects and versions for the full model.
Connections and context
Kival connects knowledge in two ways:
explicit relationships deliberately connect one object to another;
textual references are derived from supported links written into object content.
Together they make context navigable without copying it into every object. You can move from a conclusion to supporting material, from a project to the decisions around it, or from an incident to the relevant runbook and follow-up work.
History and provenance
Kival keeps more than the current answer.
Immutable versions preserve how authored content changed. Events record significant actions around objects and the wider system. Authorship records who published a version, and API-key activity can retain the credential context behind programmatic changes.
Kival records provenance it can establish from explicit actions. It does not infer the factual source of a claim that was never represented.
Collaboration
Objects are shared working surfaces. People can discuss knowledge alongside an object, reply within threads, mention collaborators, and resolve discussions without turning the conversation itself into canonical content.
When a discussion changes the team's understanding, the durable result belongs in a new object version. Commentary has its own retention lifecycle.
Access
Workspace participation and object access are separate. Membership establishes who participates in a workspace; object roles determine who can view, edit, or administer a particular object. Access can be direct or group-based, while workspace and global administrators have broader authority.
Interactive users authenticate with passkeys. Programmatic clients use API keys owned by users, with scopes and workspace delegation able to narrow that authority further.
See Access model.
The model together
workspace
└── object
├── versions
├── connections
├── discussions
├── attachments
└── accessThe object is the durable center. Versions let its authored content change; connections place it in context; history and discussion explain how it developed; access controls who can participate.