Graph projection (project)

binder project <bundle> --out <dir> [flags]

binder project projects a loaded bundle into a deterministic, credential-free property-graph schema and its loader row data, writing them to --out. It emits:

• schema.ddl — CREATE TABLE Nodes, CREATE TABLE Edges, CREATE TABLE NodeVerified (the attestation child table), and a CREATE PROPERTY GRAPH wrapper with a single LINKS edge label;
• nodes.csv and edges.csv — the row data for the two tables, one header row naming the columns in schema.ddl order followed by one row per node/edge;
• load.sql — DML INSERT statements that populate Nodes and Edges with the same rows (GoogleSQL has no SQL statement that bulk-loads a CSV, so the CSVs are the bulk-import representation for tooling such as gcloud spanner databases import and load.sql is the credential-free, tool-free loader);
• node_verified.csv — one row per verified[] attestation, copied losslessly from the source (see below);
• derivation.sql — a CREATE VIEW that recomputes tier/stale from the stored facts, so no consumer is stuck with the frozen snapshot.

It also prints a binder.report/v1 summary (command project) to stdout, uses no cloud credentials, and contacts no service.

The projection reuses the same node/edge model as graph, list_graphs, and query_graph (see Relationship extraction & the graph), so the emitted edge set and node identity stay in parity by construction. No graph is created or populated remotely. This command emits offline DDL text only.

Flag	Default	Purpose
--out	(required)	Output directory for emitted artifacts (schema.ddl, nodes.csv, edges.csv, load.sql, node_verified.csv, derivation.sql).
--target	spanner	Projection target dialect. spanner (Spanner Graph, GoogleSQL SQL/PGQ) is the only accepted value in this release; any other value is a usage error (exit 2).
--id-key	(none)	Authored frontmatter key to use as the node identity (node_key). When a concept carries this key as a non-empty string, that value is the key (strategy: frontmatter); otherwise it falls back to the path-derived concept id (strategy: path). binder never mints a key.
--today	now	Date (YYYY-MM-DD) used for the frozen tier/stale snapshot and echoed as projected_as_of. Honors SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH.

The Nodes table carries node_key, title, type, tier, stale, and stale_after. tier and stale are the projection-time snapshot as of --today (identical to what graph/review derive for the same date); stale_after is the raw authored date input, so stale stays re-derivable. The Edges table carries from_key, to_key, and the nullable rel (the link text; labels are not derived from it). The DDL is byte-deterministic: fixed column order and deterministic identifier sanitization. binder project never mints a key and never writes back to the source bundle — it only reads and emits.

Provenance completeness: NodeVerified + the derivation view

tier is a derived value, never stored on disk — the raw truth is each concept’s verified[] list. So the projection also emits that list losslessly.

node_verified.csv (and the matching CREATE TABLE NodeVerified, keyed (node_key, seq)) carries one row per attestation: node_key, seq (the stable index within the concept’s verified[]), by, at, and is_human. The rows are copied losslessly: authored order is preserved, by/at are verbatim as authored, and is_human is exactly the human: actor-prefix test that drives the trust tier (a node is human-reviewed when any attestation is human, else machine-confirmed, else unverified — see Trust model & tiers).

derivation.sql is a CREATE VIEW NodeTrustDerived that recomputes tier and stale from the stored facts (Nodes.stale_after and the NodeVerified table) rather than reading the frozen Nodes.tier/Nodes.stale columns. The view recomputes as of CURRENT_DATE(); substitute a DATE literal to recompute for any chosen date. Because the frozen tier/stale in Nodes are only a snapshot as of projected_as_of, this view lets a consumer re-derive the current verdict for any date without re-running binder.

For the full project reference, see the user guide.