# Type Taxonomy — Cart Categories & Item Types

**Status:** Canonical spec v1  
**Date:** 2026-05-20  
**Purpose:** Define complete, implementable type taxonomy for Food, Activities, and Habitat cart categories

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## Design Principles

1. **Each type captures a distinct personality axis** — not just "what" someone does, but "how" they approach it
2. **Types are mutually exclusive within a category** — an item belongs to exactly one type per category
3. **Types are bounded** — no open-ended custom types that break pattern detection
4. **Types are discoverable through passive signals** — the user doesn't take a quiz; they add real items and the type is inferred

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## FOOD — What and How You Eat

### Type Taxonomy (8 types)

| Type | What It Captures | Example Items | Personality Signal |
|------|-----------------|---------------|-------------------|
| **Restaurant** | Where you go to eat | 🍜 Bar, 🍷 The French Laundry, 🌮 local taqueria | Social dining style, effort level, budget |
| **Food Category** | Kinds of food you seek | 🍣 Sushi, 🍜 Ramen, 🥘 Ethiopian, 🍕 Neapolitan | Cultural openness, adventurousness |
| **Cooking Habit** | How you cook at home | 🥗 Meal prep Sundays, 🍳 cast iron focused, 🧀 fermenting | Self-sufficiency, routine vs. spontaneity |
| **Diet Pattern** | How you think about food | 🌱 Plant-based, 🥩 Keto, 🟢 No restrictions | Values alignment (health, ethics, identity) |
| **Drink Practice** | What you drink and where | ☕ Third wave, 🍷 Natural wines, 🥃 Japanese whisky | Craft sensibility, sophistication |
| **Special Occasion** | How you mark moments | 🎂 Birthday traditions, 🍾 Anniversary dinners | Ritual orientation, celebration priority |
| **Quick/Work** | Fuel mode | 🥪 Office lunch routine, 🍲 WFH cooking | Life rhythm, work-life integration |
| **Social Context** | How food intersects with people | 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 "Always family style," 🍰 "cook for friends" | Communal vs. solitary orientation |

### Emoji-Native Item Names

Items appear as emoji in the cart — no text needed:
- 🍕 (pizza — generic or specific restaurant emoji)
- ☕ (coffee ritual)
- 🍷 (wine)
- 🥗 (salad / healthy eating)
- 🍔 (comfort food)
- 🍣 (Japanese food generally)
- 🌮 (Mexican food generally)

For specificity, users add emoji combinations. "🍜🎌" = Japanese ramen bar. "☕🇪🇹" = Ethiopian coffee ceremony.

### Anti-Gaming Rule

Diet patterns are self-declared only — no automatic dietary inference from restaurant choices. Someone who eats sushi twice a week is not automatically flagged as pescatarian. This prevents false resonance on values that the user didn't explicitly claim.

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## ACTIVITIES — What You Do With Your Time

### Type Taxonomy (10 types)

| Type | What It Captures | Example Items | Personality Signal |
|------|-----------------|---------------|-------------------|
| **Sport (Competitive)** | Structured sport with measurable output | Rock climbing, tennis, CrossFit | Goal-orientation, progress need, body relationship |
| **Sport (Social)** | Sport as social container | Saturday soccer, beach volleyball, group rides | Community bonding style, belonging need |
| **Creative Making** | Making things with your hands/mind | Painting, music production, writing, woodworking | Self-expression mode, identity investment |
| **Creative Consuming** | Engaging with made things | Film, music, art exhibits, theater | Aesthetic sensitivity, cultural engagement |
| **Physical Wellness** | Body maintenance (non-competitive) | Yoga, Pilates, running, cycling | Self-care orientation, solitude vs. communal |
| **Social Entertainment** | Activities oriented around being with people | Board game nights, pub trivia, dinner parties | Social energy, group dynamic preference |
| **Outdoor/Nature** | Time in natural environments | Hiking, camping, surfing, birdwatching | Environment relationship, stimulation need |
| **Intellectual/Craft** | Deep skill acquisition | Languages, coding, chess, specialty coffee brewing | Growth orientation, mastery drive |
| **Media Creation** | Making media content | YouTube, podcasting, photography, streaming | Audience relationship, sharing orientation |
| **Casual/Default** | What you default to doing nothing | Binge-watching, scrolling, podcast listening | Recovery orientation, rest relationship |

### Signal Hierarchy

For resonance purposes, the system weights higher types more than lower ones:
- **Making signals** (Creative Making, Media Creation) indicate identity investment — these generate deeper resonance
- **Passive signals** (Casual/Default) indicate lifestyle patterns — these generate ambient resonance
- Competitive vs. Social sport distinction matters — a runner and a soccer player have different social orientations even if both are "sport"

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## MUSIC — What Moves Through You

Music is the fourth cart category. It captures the sonic dimension of identity — not what someone "likes" but what lives in their ears, their body, their rituals. Music is cross-modal: it pairs with every other category and carries deep emotional and contextual signal.

### Why Music as a Cart Category

Music reveals identity dimensions that Food/Activities/Habitat cannot:

- **Emotional state** — what frequency of feeling someone inhabits
- **Social context** — solitary listening vs. shared music moments
- **Temporal rhythm** — morning playlists, workout tracks, late-night albums
- **Aspirational self** — music someone is moving toward
- **Memory architecture** — songs tied to specific places, people, times

A user's music cart also directly drives the generative audio system (see Concept 7 — Generative Audio). The items in the music cart set the melodic direction, harmonic mode, and rhythmic feel of the ambient score.

### Type Taxonomy (10 types)

| Type | What It Captures | Example Items | Personality Signal |
|------|-----------------|---------------|-------------------|
| **Listening Ritual** | Music as part of a routine | ☕ Morning coffee playlist, 🛁 Bath time albums, 🌙 Late night specific albums | Temporal self, daily rhythm |
| **Genre** | Broad sonic territory | 🎸 Rock, 🎹 Electronic, 🎻 Classical, 🧘 Ambient, 🎤 Singer-songwriter | Aesthetic orientation, energy preference |
| **Mood/State** | Music for specific emotional needs | 😤 Anger music, 🥹 Sadness music, 🌀 Focus music, 💪 Motivation tracks | Emotional intelligence, self-regulation |
| **Artist Loyalty** | Deep commitment to specific artists | 🎤 Taylor Swift (deep catalog), 🎸 Radiohead, 🎹 Aphex Twin | Identity investment, depth vs. breadth |
| **Live/Event** | Music as in-person experience | 🎤 Concert-goer, 🎻 Symphony, 🏠 House shows, 🎪 Festivals | Social energy, communal experience |
| **Creation** | Making music | 🎸 Play guitar, 🎹 Produce beats, 🎤 Songwrite, 🪘 DJ | Self-expression mode, output orientation |
| **Social Soundtrack** | Music as social container | 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 "Always playing music for guests," 🎉 Dinner party playlists | Generosity, social orientation |
| **Physical Movement** | Music tied to body activity | 🏃 Workout playlists, 🧘 Yoga soundtracks, 💃 Dancing | Body relationship, energy management |
| **Discovery Mode** | How someone finds new music | 📻 New music newsletter, 🎧 Release radar, 👂 Friend recs | Openness, curation style |
| **Aspirational** | Music someone is moving toward | 🎓 "Learning to appreciate jazz," 🎻 "Getting into classical" | Growth orientation, future self |

### Signal Hierarchy

| Tier | Types | Weight | Resonance Depth |
|------|-------|--------|----------------|
| **Deep** (identity core) | Listening Ritual, Mood/State, Creation | ×1.0 | Deepest — reveals how someone inhabits time |
| **Social** (behavior axis) | Live/Event, Social Soundtrack, Physical Movement | ×0.8 | Social — how music moves through groups |
| **Ambient** (lifestyle axis) | Genre, Artist Loyalty, Discovery Mode, Aspirational | ×0.5 | Ambient — what someone is like on the surface |

### Emoji-Native Item Names

Music items use emoji to capture genre/mood/artist:
- 🎸🎤 (rock and singer-songwriter energy)
- 🎹🔊 (electronic music broadly)
- 🎻🥗 (classical — "quiet music" as category marker)
- 🧘🌊 (ambient for calm/mindfulness)
- 🎤🇬🇧 (British artists broadly)
- 🏃💪 (workout music)
- 🌙🥀 (sad/reflective late-night music)

Users combine emoji for specificity. No text required.

### Anti-Gaming Rules

1. **No play count inference** — listening data from Spotify/Apple Music is NOT used to weight items. This prevents Spotify-influenced resonance that isn't genuinely owned.
2. **Aspirational items are marked** — when a user adds "classical music I'm learning to appreciate," the system notes this as aspirational and weights it lower for resonance (×0.6 instead of ×1.0) until it transitions to a deeper tier through repeated presence in the cart.
3. **Creation types require verification** — if someone claims 🎸 Guitar Player, a follow-up prompt asks them to confirm ("how often do you play?"). Prevents gaming with gear emoji.

### Cross-Modal Mapping to Generative Audio

The music cart directly drives the generative audio engine:

| Music Cart Type | Audio Parameter Affected |
|-----------------|--------------------------|
| Genre = Electronic | Saw/wavetable oscillator, higher rhythmic density |
| Genre = Classical | Triangle oscillator, slow attack, sparse events |
| Listening Ritual = Morning | Key center rises toward noon, brighter timbre |
| Listening Ritual = Late Night | Key center minor, reverb increases, drone enters |
| Mood/State = Focus | Lower dynamic range, steady rhythm, no melodic surprises |
| Live/Event = Festivals | Higher dynamics, stereo width, chorus effect |
| Physical Movement | Rhythmic pulse synced to typical BPM range |
| Creation | Adds melodic complexity — the user is generating, not just receiving |

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## HABITAT — Your Living Environment

### Type Taxonomy (7 types)

| Type | What It Captures | Example Items | Personality Signal |
|------|-----------------|---------------|-------------------|
| **Plants/Nature Inside** | Living things in your space | Monstera collection, herb garden, fish tank | Nurturing orientation, life-complexity tolerance |
| **Pets** | Animal cohabitants | Dog, cat, parrot, bearded dragon | Responsibility orientation, care capacity |
| **Aesthetic Direction** | Visual style of your space | Japanese minimalism, maximalist, brutalist concrete | Identity expression mode, visual sensitivity |
| **Spatial Organization** | How you organize your space | "Everything has a place," "creative chaos," "minimalist" | Cognitive style, control orientation |
| **Hosting Setup** | How your space accommodates guests | "Big kitchen for dinner parties," "guest room always ready" | Social orientation, generosity level |
| **Work/Solo Space** | Your space for focused solo time | "Dedicated home office," "coffee shop as workspace" | Work-life integration, solitude need |
| **Environment Signals** | How your space connects to outside | "Floor-to-ceiling windows," "courtyard access," "urban balcony" | Openness, light relationship, indoor-outdoor |

### Reveal Privacy Rules

Habitat signals are the most intimate category — your home reveals how you live when no one is watching. Default reveal rules:
- R1 (Inner Circle): Full habitat signals
- R2 (Archetypes): Category only (no specific items)
- R3+: No habitat signals visible — only Food and Activities propagate to outer rings

This is intentional. The deeper rings are about reaching toward, not about domestic intimacy.

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## Pattern Detection Weight Matrix

For resonance scoring across all categories:

| Type Tier | Food | Activities | Habitat | Music | Weight |
|-----------|------|-----------|---------|-------|--------|
| **Deep signal** (identity axis) | Diet Pattern, Cooking Habit | Creative Making, Media Creation | Aesthetic Direction, Spatial Organization | Listening Ritual, Mood/State, Creation | ×1.0 |
| **Social signal** (behavior axis) | Restaurant, Social Context | Sport (Social), Social Entertainment | Hosting Setup, Pets | Live/Event, Social Soundtrack, Physical Movement | ×0.8 |
| **Ambient signal** (lifestyle axis) | Quick/Work, Special Occasion | Outdoor/Nature, Physical Wellness | Environment Signals, Work/Solo Space | Genre, Artist Loyalty, Discovery Mode, Aspirational | ×0.5 |

Items in the same tier from two users score higher than items across tiers.

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## What's Missing — Gap Analysis

### Uncovered Dimensions

1. **Temporal Rhythms** — When someone does things reveals as much as what they do. Morning person vs. night owl, seasonal preferences. `added_at` timestamp on items enables diurnal/seasonal pattern recognition without new types.
2. **Care Practices** — How someone maintains themselves and others (fitness routines, medical self-care, caregiving). Currently habitat is about space, not about care labor. Could be a type within habitat or a fourth dimension.
3. **Financial Relationship** — How someone relates to spending across categories. Not a type but a dimension inferred from price tier signals. Absent but low priority.

### Low-Priority Gaps (Will Not Address Now)

- **Digital Spaces** — explicitly deprioritized. Gaming, forums, and digital environments are covered by Activity types (Outdoor/Nature, Media Creation, Intellectual/Craft) without a separate category.
- **Relationship Orientation** — how someone thinks about relationships themselves. Ring structure captures relational position; cart captures identity, not relational philosophy.

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## Implementation Notes

- Each item in the cart has: `{ id, name, category, type, added_at, source_url? }`
- Type is assigned by the user at add time, not inferred by the system (prevents type misclassification gaming)
- Categories and types are fixed in the spec — no user-created custom types (prevents taxonomy drift)
- Type taxonomy updates require a version bump and migration — treated as breaking schema change

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*For review: does this taxonomy feel complete enough to generate meaningful resonance, while specific enough to avoid false positives? The 8/10/7 split across Food/Activities/Habitat is unbalanced — is the imbalance by design or is Activities over-captured?*