zetl

ADR-004: Default Link Deduplication

Status: Accepted

Context

A page may contain multiple wikilinks to the same target (e.g., [[Cache]] mentioned three times in a single page). Should zetl links and zetl backlinks report the target once or three times?

Discovered during the agent ergonomics audit — see Agent Ergonomics.

Decision

Deduplicate by default at the output layer. A page appears once in results even if multiple links point to it.

Rationale

  • Agent workflows typically want “what pages are connected?” not “how many times is this link repeated?”
  • Deduplication at the output layer keeps the internal Link Graph faithful to the actual link structure
  • Users who need link counts can use zetl stats or zetl export for the full data

Implementation

Deduplication happens after graph traversal, before JSON/table serialization. The graph itself retains all edges.

See also: Links Command, Agent Ergonomics, SPEC-003 Agent Ergonomics

Backlinks