type: "Stack layer"
title: "Understanding and grounding"
description: "Schema grounding vs semantic grounding: matching types vs matching intent."
tags: [stack, grounding, semantics]
generated: { by: human:crpage, at: 2026-07-09T09:44:00Z }
status: stable

Role in the stack

Schema grounding asks whether fields and types match a formal contract; semantic grounding asks whether the model mapped user intent to the right operation, entity and parameters. A call can be schema-valid yet semantically wrong, policy-violating or goal-failing.

Practice

A hierarchy for schema extraction: first authoritative published contracts; then introspection / generated descriptors (GraphQL introspection, .proto); last resort, inferred schema from examples — useful for bootstrapping but not ground truth.

Relates to: Failure taxonomy, Contracts and interfaces.

Terms

Glossary terms used here: Schema grounding, Semantic grounding.