`data/relationships/`

A relationship kind: a typed link from one entity to others, such as a pet’s tamed-by link to its owner. The kind’s key is also the key of the component that holds an entity’s links. Its policy says how many targets an entity may link to, what happens to the link when a target is deleted or unloads, whether links are saved, and who sees them. The engine declares the kinds the ECS core ships (manifold-ecs:child-of, manifold-ecs:owned-by, manifold-ecs:targets); archetypes list a kind’s component as () and the spawn supplies the targets.


Registry	`manifold:relationship`
Files	`data/relationships/.ron`, `.update.ron`, `*.final.ron`
Sides	both: the server and every client load it, and the handshake’s data hash covers it
Reads	nothing
Contract	Entity core (`docs/architecture/entity-core.md`), data stage

Entry

A record, written Relationship(..); the name before the parentheses is optional.

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
`id`	`string`	yes		The kind’s key, `<mod-id>:<name>`: also the key of the component that holds its links.
`exclusive`	`bool`	yes		`true` when an entity links to at most one target.
`max_targets`	`u8` or `None`	no	`8` for a non-exclusive kind	The most targets an entity may link to, 2 to 32. Only for a non-exclusive kind; an exclusive kind has exactly one and leaves it out.
`on_delete_target`	`OnDeleteTarget`	yes		What happens to the link when its target is deleted.
`on_unload_target`	`OnUnloadTarget`	yes		What happens to the link when its target unloads.
`persist`	`bool`	no	`true`	Whether links are saved with the entity.
`replicate`	`RelationReplication`	no	`None`	Which clients receive the links.

Example

No bundled file declares one yet. From the reference’s test fixture, crates/manifold-server-state/tests/data-reference-fixture/data/relationships/tamed_by.ron, which the data stage loads in its tests:

Relationship(
    id: "dataref-fixture:tamed-by",
    exclusive: true,
    on_delete_target: Remove,
    on_unload_target: Keep,
    persist: true,
    replicate: Public,
)

Types

`OnDeleteTarget`

What a link does when its target is deleted.

Variant	Written	Description
`Remove`	`Remove`	The link is removed; the entity stays.
`Delete`	`Delete`	The entity is deleted with its target (a cascade).
`Panic`	`Panic`	Deleting the target is a bug: the server stops with an error.

`OnUnloadTarget`

What a link does when its target unloads.

Variant	Written	Description
`Keep`	`Keep`	The link stays and resolves again when the target reloads.
`Remove`	`Remove`	The link is removed.
`Unload`	`Unload`	The entity unloads with its target.

`RelationReplication`

Which clients receive a data-declared kind’s links.

Variant	Written	Description
`None`	`None`	No client.
`Owner`	`Owner`	The client that owns the entity.
`Party`	`Party`	The owner’s party.
`Public`	`Public`	Every client that has the entity in scope.

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