Syntax in YAML

Elements

The following Goal Structuring Notation (GSN) core elements are supported:

Element Type	Prefix
Goal	G
Assumption	A
Justification	J
Solution	Sn
Context	C
Strategy	S
Counter Goal	CG
Counter Solution	CSn

Every element is defined by a prefix (as shown in the table above) and an arbitrary identifier then.

Examples

G1:

G-TopLevelGoal:

C_A_certain_context:

Attributes

The only mandatory attribute is text that is the textual contents of the element.

An optional supportedBy gives a list of the supporting arguments. Thus, Goal, Strategy and Solution can be listed here.

An optional inContextOf links Justifications, Contexts or Assumptions.

Every element may have an optional url attribute that creates a navigation link in the resulting SVG. This should support finding information more easily.

Goals and Strategies can be undeveloped i.e., without supporting Goals, Strategies or Solutions. These elements should marked with undeveloped: true, otherwise validation will emit warnings.

Example

G1:
  text: This is a Goal
  supportedBy: [S1]
  inContextOf: [C1]

S1:
  text: This is a Strategy

C1: 
  text: This is a Context

Please see examples/example.gsn.yaml for an example of the used syntax.

Summary

Attribute	Optional	Notes
text	no
supportedBy	yes
inContextOf	yes
undeveloped	yes	Mutually exclusive to `supportedBy`.
url	yes
classes	yes	See Stylesheets.
nodeType	yes	See footnote¹
rankIncrement	yes	See Layout.
horizontalIndex	yes	See Layout.
charWrap	yes	See Line Breaks.
acp	yes	See Confidence Argument Extension.
challenges	yes	See Dialectic Extension.
defeated	yes	See Dialectic Extension.

When providing a nodeType you do not need to follow the standard prefix scheme above. Just set nodeType to Goal, Assumption, Justification, Solution, Context, Strategy, CounterGoal and CounterSolution to give the type of the element. ↩