a file is a particle with data, name, and meta
file = (particle, data, name, meta)
| component | role |
|---|---|
| particle | the Hemera hash of data — the file's identity in the cybergraph |
| data | the content bytes themselves |
| name | human-readable label for the file |
| meta | structured attributes — author neuron, creation height, cyberlinks to related particles, mime hints, anything else the dialect declares |
two files with the same data share the same particle. they remain different files when their name or meta differ — the particle is the content's intrinsic identity, the file is the neuron-facing wrapper around it
a file is what flows through tape frames when an agent sends "a thing" rather than a raw atom or molecule. the name lets humans address it, the meta lets the graph reason about it, the particle anchors it in content-addressed space, the data is the substance
every image, sound, video, document, dataset, source file, and program in the cybergraph is a file in this sense — particles wrapped with the labels and attributes that make them legible to neurons
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