Frame-QL: An Introduction

Abstract

Frame-QL is a language for declaring a governed analytical result: the requester names the analytical objects, declares the output anchor, and states the conditions — never the relational operations that produce them. This introduction develops the governing idea (the output frame is the query), the separation it enables (SQL is declarative about relational processing; Frame-QL is declarative about governed analytical identity), why rows, tables, joins, and GROUP BY are not primitives of the request surface, how ambiguity becomes clarification rather than silent choice, and why the design gives AI agents a productive interpretive role without granting authority over analytical law or database execution. The theory determines status; policy determines presentation. The Frame-QL Manual (Second Edition, distributed with the public Columna repository, every example verified against the running parser) remains authoritative for syntax and shipped behavior.