the language
schema
JSON Schema · the structured-output contract the model's reply must satisfy. The out-of-core hatch; the typed door is task-level `returns:` (both on one task is NIKA-TYPE-003). One of 62 words the served contract declares, projected from workflow.schema.json, the same file your editor validates against.
- 2surfacesinfer · agent
- optionaleverywherea choice, never a miss
- objecttypethe declared shape
- 3skeletonscarry this key
the contract
2 declarationsDescriptions are the schema's own; the deeper invariants (value languages and regexes) ride the same projection. A miss is a nika check finding before anything runs.
- infer
objectJSON Schema · the structured-output contract the model's reply must satisfy. The out-of-core hatch; the typed door is task-level `returns:` (both on one task is NIKA-TYPE-003).inside infer:- agent
objectJSON Schema · the contract the agent's FINAL message must satisfy. The out-of-core hatch; the typed door is task-level `returns:` (both on one task is NIKA-TYPE-003).inside agent:
in a real file
from the agent-loop skeleton plan: infer: prompt: "Break '${{ inputs.goal }}' into at most 4 concrete steps." # SLOT # SLOT: the spend ceiling for the planning call. Size it for the SEAT, # not for the answer: a reasoning model spends tokens thinking before # it emits the first brace, and a ceiling that cuts it off mid-thought # fails NIKA-INFER-002 ("no JSON value found · the reply was cut off at # the token limit"). Measured — 400 starves qwen3.5:4b on this prompt. max_tokens: 2000 schema: type: object additionalProperties: false required: [steps] properties: steps: { type: array, items: { type: string } }a verbatim slice, real line numbers from agent-loop.nika.yaml, conformance-gated upstream on every spec push. open the full skeleton →
cross-references
skeletons that carry it
the check gates that name it
from the blog
defined by
the block it lives in
infer: inside infer:
agent: inside agent:
The whole grammar in one place: the four verbs · the standard library · the spec. Try it in the playground. Read the reference →