Dimension — space
Where a thing sits, and who says so.
A location is not a text field. It is a position inside something, which is itself inside something — and somebody claimed it, on some authority, at some moment.
Most systems store a location as a code on a row: A-22, WH3, STN-LIS. That works exactly until you ask a question that crosses levels — everything at this station, including what is fitted to an aircraft in its hangar, including what is in a shop crate that has not moved yet.
Selira models space as containment you can walk. A shelf is in a store, which is at a station. A position is on an aircraft, which stands in a hangar bay, which is at the same station. Walking up from the part reaches the station either way, so one question covers both — and the answer tells you which kind of place it landed in.
That last part matters more than it sounds. “On a shelf”, “fitted to an aircraft” and “in a crate at a repair shop” are operationally different answers, and in most estates those three answers sit in three different systems’ tables. The same walk works for a network — site, room, rack, shelf, card, port. Space here is what is inside what; the map stays in your GIS.
Who says so
A placement is a claim, not a fact
Nothing in a software system knows where a physical object is. It only knows what somebody said about it, and when, and on what basis.
So a placement in Selira carries its own provenance. A stock-take that somebody physically walked is a different claim from a booking that only inferred the same shelf. They can both be present. One outranks the other by the rules you declare, and you can see which and why.
This is also what makes “last seen in March” a real answer rather than an error. If nobody has claimed a position since March, that is the honest state of knowledge — and it is far more useful than a confident blank.
What you can ask
- Within
- Everything of this kind at this station — on shelves, fitted, or inbound.
- Kind
- Is it on a shelf, fitted to something, or sitting in a shop?
- Whose word
- Did somebody physically confirm this position, or did a system infer it?
- Since
- How long has it been there, and when was it last actually seen?
Ask where something is, properly.
Across levels, with the claim behind it attached.