Agent

• CURIE: gmeow:Agent
• IRI: https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/Agent
• Category: class
• Defined by: gmeow:slices/kernel

An entity that can act, bear responsibility, and enter into agreements: a person, an organization, or a software agent.

Structure

Subclass of: gmeow:Entity, gufo:FunctionalComplex

Practical Pattern

Use gmeow:Agent as a specialized kind of gmeow:Entity, gufo:FunctionalComplex. Add statement metadata or a standpoint when the assertion needs provenance, confidence, or vantage.

Example Snippets

These snippets are generated from canonical slice examples and trimmed to the Turtle blocks where this term appears.

Agent Sortals

• Source: slices/core/entities/examples/agent-sortals.ttl
• Examples catalog: open in catalog#example-slices-core-entities-examples-agent-sortals

# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2026 Blackcat Informatics® Inc. <paudley@blackcatinformatics.ca>
# SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-4.0
#
# Worked example: the four agent sortals. A small consultancy, two of its
# people, an informal working group, and its CI bot — each a distinct gufo:Kind
# beneath the kernel's gmeow:Agent. The flat naming tier (gmeow:name) carries the
# 80% case here; anything that needs structure — a reified PersonName, a contact
# point, a location — attaches to these Kinds from its own slice (the entities
# slice stays deliberately thin). Person ⟂ Organization ⟂ SoftwareAgent are
# pairwise disjoint (a human is never a bot); Group is deliberately NOT disjoint
# (a structured organization is arguably also a group, P9).
@prefix gmeow: <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/> .
@prefix ex:    <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/examples/entities/> .
@prefix rdfs:  <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .

Belief And Knowledge

• Source: slices/core/epistemics/examples/belief-and-knowledge.ttl
• Examples catalog: open in catalog#example-slices-core-epistemics-examples-belief-and-knowledge

@prefix gmeow: <https://blackcatinformatics.ca/gmeow/> .
@prefix ex:    <https://example.org/> .
@prefix rdfs:  <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .



ex:ada a gmeow:Agent ;
    gmeow:knowsThat            ex:earthOrbitsSun ;   # entails gmeow:believes ex:earthOrbitsSun
    gmeow:believes            ex:coffeeIsHealthy ;
    gmeow:accepts             ex:nullHypothesis ;   # a working premise — NOT believed
    gmeow:suspendsJudgementOn ex:lifeOnEuropa .

Common Companion Terms

gmeow:Entity

Projects To

External Equivalences

Equivalent or closely aligned targets: foaf, ladm, prov, sosa, wd

Linkages

Generated from the canonical mapping DSL. SSSOM files are the generated public interchange form for term equivalences.

Term Equivalences

Projection Coverage

Usage Advice

Use when

• Use for the bearer of action, responsibility, authorship, agreement, or trust — the domain of contribution, attestation, and provenance roles whenever the participant is a person, organization, or software agent.

Avoid when

• Avoid for things that are merely acted upon or that carry information without acting (use PhysicalObject or InformationObject); avoid asserting bare gmeow:Agent when Person or Organization is meant.

How to use

• Type the participant as Agent (or a Person/Organization specialization) and link it through role relators — contribution, attribution, party-to-agreement — rather than flattening agency into a single attribute.

Examples

• ex:lillith a gmeow:Agent; gmeow:hasName ex:lillithName.