Core model

Business concepts

ABCS keeps its model deliberately small and relentlessly business-focused.

Concept	Role in ABCS
Capability	The universal executable primitive: something meaningful the business can do.
Business Domain	An enduring area of business responsibility and identifier namespace, such as Procurement or Finance.
Business Object	Canonical business information a capability acts upon, consumes, produces or references.
Party	A reusable business participant such as an organization or person.
Role	The contextual business role a Party or participant plays, such as Supplier, Customer, Buyer or Approver.
Process	A business orchestration of capabilities and human/system steps toward an outcome; not a separate execution primitive.
Policy	A business decision or constraint governing when or how a capability may operate.
Event	A business-significant occurrence associated with capability execution or Business Object change.
Relationship	A typed business link between objects, capabilities, parties or supporting semantics.

Capability vs. implementation

ABCS capability
procurement.purchase-order.get
          │
          ├── SAP implementation
          ├── Oracle implementation
          ├── custom application
          ├── autonomous agent
          └── human workflow

The implementation may change. The canonical business meaning remains stable.

Business Object vs. Capability

procurement.purchase-order          Business Object

procurement.purchase-order.get      Capability
procurement.purchase-order.submit   Capability
procurement.purchase-order.approve  Capability

Purchase Order is business information; it is not itself something to execute. Capabilities act on that information.

Business-only test

Would this capability still make sense if humans performed the work manually and all implementation technology disappeared?

Belongs in ABCS	Outside ABCS
`finance.payment.approve`	`integration.kafka.publish`
`hr.payroll-run.schedule`	`automation.job.schedule`
`logistics.shipment.notify`	`middleware.message.send`
`manufacturing.work-order.release`	`container.job.start`

Why Integration and Automation are not domains

Integration and automation describe enabling technology or implementation disciplines. ABCS domains answer what area of the business owns the meaning?, not what technology performs it? A synchronized Purchase Order remains Procurement; an automated Payment remains Finance.

Scheduling distinction

Scheduling can be a business operation when the scheduled subject is itself meaningful to the business. finance.payment-run.schedule belongs; scheduling a technical batch job does not. Delaying arbitrary capability execution is a runtime concern unless the scheduling action has independent business meaning.

Continue to the canonical Business Object model →