The route file format.
A route is a text file. This page is the whole specification: what the file holds, what makes it valid, and why the walker on this site is only one of the ways to read it.
What a route file holds
A question worth following. The move being made (understand, decide, make, practice, teach, or organize). A stated time. Three to nine stations, each with a type, a task, and its sources. What the learner leaves with. The ways out. And two honesty fields the format requires:
would_change: every route states what would restructure it. A route that cannot say what would change it is a syllabus with confidence.
drafted_with: if a model helped draft the route, the route says so beside its authors. A format that demands provenance of every source does not exempt itself.
The seven station types
ORIENT and SOURCE: read, watch, or examine something with visible provenance. COUNTERPOINT: meet a credible disagreement. PERSON: speak with someone. PLACE: go somewhere real. PRACTICE: attempt the skill. MAKE: produce the artifact. Plus REFLECT, which closes most routes. The list is closed on purpose: a new type needs a format revision, and that is what keeps a forked route walkable in someone else's walker.
What makes a file valid
1. It parses, and its format field names a version a walker knows.
2. Three to nine stations, including at least one that can correct the walker of the route (a counterpoint, a person holding a different relationship to the question, or a tested practice) and at least one that happens away from the page (a person, a place, a practice, a making).
3. Every counterpoint station cites at least one source whose origin is a published work, a person, or a dataset, with an author and a date. A counterpoint generated by whatever drafted the route is not a counterpoint; the objection has to come from outside. The measured reason lives at Legible AI: a second opinion only adds signal when it differs in lineage, and a second prompt to the same model is the same opinion asked twice.
4. Every source carries a date, or the walker prints undated beside it.
5. would_change is present and not empty.
6. A file with no correcting station and no active station can still be valid, but only as kind: reading-list, and a walker titles it as one. Kosplora's own twelve ranked reading routes carry exactly that label.
A starter file
Copy it, fill it in a text editor, and open it beside any of the walkable routes to compare. The composer does not exist yet; this file and a text editor are the current composer, and that is a statement of fact rather than a plan.
{
"kind": "route",
"format": "kosplora-route/0.1",
"question": "",
"move": ["understand"],
"audience": "",
"time": { "solo": "2h" },
"authors": [{ "name": "", "date": "" }],
"drafted_with": null,
"would_change": "",
"stations": [
{ "type": "orient", "time": "30m", "task": "",
"sources": [{ "title": "", "author": "", "date": "", "url": "", "origin": "published" }] },
{ "type": "person", "time": "40m", "task": "" },
{ "type": "counterpoint", "time": "20m", "task": "",
"sources": [{ "title": "", "author": "", "date": "", "origin": "published" }] },
{ "type": "make", "time": "45m", "task": "" }
],
"artifact": { "keeps": "" },
"exit": ["keep", "share", "fork", "close"],
"revisions": [{ "date": "", "change": "First version.", "by": "" }]
}Where this honestly stands: the format is at 0.1 and three routes use it. No walker other than this site's exists yet, and no route written outside this family has been walked. The format is published first so that either of those can happen without permission.