◮ SCN

SCN Specification v1.0

The complete technical specification for Symbolic Context Notation - a hyper-efficient format for representing software codebase structure.

Table of Contents

1. The Problem: Context Chasm 2. The Solution: SCN Philosophy 3. Comparison with AST/CST 4. Before & After Examples 5. Core Specification
6. Master Symbol Legend 7. Examples by Paradigm 8. Design Rationale 9. Applications & Vision 10. Tooling & Ecosystem

1. The Problem: The "Context Chasm"

Modern software development faces a fundamental challenge: the gap between massive codebases and LLM token limits. A typical enterprise application can contain millions of lines of code, but even the most advanced LLMs have context windows measured in hundreds of thousands of tokens.

The Challenge

  • • A single React component can consume 2,000+ tokens
  • • Enterprise codebases require millions of tokens for full context
  • • LLMs lose critical architectural understanding when context is truncated
  • • Developers resort to cherry-picking files, losing inter-file relationships

2. The Solution: SCN Philosophy

SCN bridges this chasm by representing the structural surface of code rather than its implementation details. It captures what matters most for understanding: APIs, relationships, and architectural patterns.

What SCN Captures

  • ✅ Class and function signatures
  • ✅ Import/export relationships
  • ✅ Type information
  • ✅ Public APIs
  • ✅ File structure
  • ✅ Inheritance hierarchies

What SCN Omits

  • ❌ Implementation details
  • ❌ Comments and documentation
  • ❌ Whitespace and formatting
  • ❌ Local variables
  • ❌ Control flow logic
  • ❌ Literal values

5. The SCN Specification v1.0

Core Structure

SCN files consist of file blocks separated by the file separator symbol ◮. Each file block contains entity definitions with their relationships and properties.

// Basic structure
filename.ext◮
⤵imports
◉Entity{properties}
⚡method()→returnType
⤴exports

6. Master Symbol Legend

File Operations

◮ File separator
⤴ Export/public
⤵ Import/dependency

Entities

◉ Class/Type
⚡ Function/Method
◈ Interface/Protocol
◦ Variable/Property

Modifiers

⊕ Public
⊖ Private
⊗ Static
⊙ Abstract

9. Applications & The Broader Vision

SCN enables a new generation of AI-assisted development tools by providing LLMs with comprehensive codebase context at a fraction of the token cost.

Immediate Applications

  • • Code review and analysis
  • • Automated documentation generation
  • • Refactoring assistance
  • • Architecture visualization
  • • Dependency analysis

Future Possibilities

  • • AI-powered code generation
  • • Intelligent code completion
  • • Cross-language understanding
  • • Automated testing strategies
  • • Performance optimization suggestions

10. Tooling & Ecosystem

Parsers

Language-specific parsers for generating SCN from source code

Generators

Tools for generating documentation and visualizations from SCN

IDE Extensions

Editor integrations for real-time SCN generation and viewing