# Writing and symbol data

Milestone 4 stores what a player wrote without deciding what that writing does
to an Age. Milestone 5 owns grammar validation, symbol interaction, instability,
and translation into biome, noise, dimension-type, and other world-generation
configuration.

## Symbol catalog

The authoritative server catalog loads JSON resources from
`data/<namespace>/rivencraft/symbols/<path>.json`. The resource ID is the
symbol ID. For example, `data/rivencraft/rivencraft/symbols/terrain/standard.json`
defines `rivencraft:terrain/standard`.

Schema version 1 contains display metadata only:

```json
{
  "schema_version": 1,
  "name": "symbol.rivencraft.terrain.standard",
  "description": "symbol.rivencraft.terrain.standard.description",
  "category": "rivencraft:terrain"
}
```

`name` and `description` are translation keys, not arbitrary formatted text or
executable behavior. `category` is a namespaced organizational identifier.
Invalid definitions are logged and excluded by the server. Menus and future
page synchronization must obtain resolved display metadata from the server;
clients never make a symbol valid by naming it.

Rivencraft ships a small catalog covering terrain, biomes, lighting, weather,
celestial behavior, and features. It exists to exercise the complete writing
workflow before Milestone 5 implements the full legacy grammar.

## Persistent writing

`SymbolReference` stores only a namespaced symbol ID. `WritingEntry` is either
a symbol reference or a baseline link-panel marker. `OrderedWriting` retains up
to 256 entries in exact player-authored order. All three contracts have both
persistent codecs and bounded network codecs.

Removing a data pack never removes its IDs from saved writing. A missing ID is
resolved as client-safe **Unresolved Symbol** display metadata while retaining
the original namespaced ID for diagnostics and later restoration. This is
deliberately different from treating an unknown symbol as valid grammar.