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Terminology
The words you meet when reading hREA code, issues and release notes. The vocabulary changed substantially between 2022 and today: hREA used to ship one DNA per functional module, and now ships a single DNA. The older vocabulary is preserved in Modules in the hREA framework 2022 archive.
DNA. A Holochain application's backend: its data types, its validation rules, and the network its participants share. hREA ships one DNA, named hrea, built from dnas/hrea. Two artifacts come out of a release: hrea.dna, which you compose into your own hApp alongside your own DNAs, and hrea.happ, which runs hREA on its own as a separate installed app.
Integrity zome and coordinator zome. Holochain splits a DNA in two. The integrity zome (hrea_integrity) declares the entry and link types and the validation rules every participant enforces; changing it changes the DNA hash and therefore the network. The coordinator zome (hrea) holds the callable functions and can be updated without splitting the network. hREA's economic record types live in both, one rea_* module per type.
The GraphQL adapter. @valueflows/vf-graphql-holochain, in modules/vf-graphql-holochain, is how applications talk to hREA. It turns the zome's functions into the ValueFlows GraphQL schema, which is also what other ValueFlows backends speak. Its version line tracks the DNA line: 0.700.x with the Holochain 0.7 releases, 0.600.x with the 0.6 ones.
Network seed. A string mixed into the DNA hash when an application is installed. Two installations of the same hrea.dna with different network seeds are different networks that never see each other's data, which is how separate collaboration spaces are kept separate without separate code.
DNA properties. Configuration baked into a DNA at install time, which also changes its hash. Together with the network seed, these are the runtime configuration surface of an hREA installation.
ValueFlows is the vocabulary hREA implements: a shared way to describe economic resources, the events that affect them, and the agents who take part. It is maintained independently of hREA at valueflo.ws, and hREA is one implementation of it among several.
Agent, resource, event. The three anchors of REA accounting. Agents do things, resources are affected, events record what actually happened. Plans, commitments, intents and proposals describe what is intended or agreed before an event exists.
Observation versus planning. A vocabulary distinction, not a code one any more: observed economic events record what happened, while commitments, intents and proposals describe what is meant to happen. Until 2023 these lived in separate DNAs, which is why older documents talk about an observation network and a planning network as separate things.
Classes that ValueFlows 1.0 removed. ProposedIntent, Satisfaction and Fulfillment were separate classes in earlier versions and are now direct fields: EconomicEvent.fulfills and .satisfies, with Commitment.fulfilledBy and Intent.satisfiedBy as the reverse edges. Code and documents written before 2026 will still refer to them as entities.
Participants, not users. People using applications built on hREA are participants within a system rather than users of one. The phrasing is deliberate and long-standing in this project.
Consuming application. An application that composes hrea.dna into its own hApp and talks to it through the GraphQL adapter, usually alongside DNAs of its own. See Who is building on hREA.
Framework DNA, dependent DNA, framework zome. Vocabulary from the 2022 multi-DNA architecture, when each functional module was its own installable network. It no longer describes what hREA ships. It is kept in Modules in the hREA framework 2022 archive for reading older issues and documents.
Last reviewed: 2026-09-16.