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Guide
An ontology holds the types, links and rules that describe your data, with its versions, documents and loads. Each one is bound to one Helix database, which its loads write into. A workspace can have several ontologies, one per database. Ontologies lists the workspace’s ontologies with the database each one uses.
The Ontologies page listing Customer contracts on the contracts database

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Create one

1

Name it

In Ontologies, select New ontology and give it a name, such as “Customer contracts”.
2

Choose its database

Use an existing one lists the live databases in the workspace’s Helix projects. A database another ontology uses is greyed out. Loads write beside anything the database already holds, and Foundry never deletes it.
The New ontology form with the orders database selected
Create a new one makes a database in the project you choose, on Helix’s shared cluster, under the workspace’s Helix plan. Its address is the name you give it, with a short suffix when another database already has it.
The New ontology form creating a database named orders-graph in the Staging project
3

Create it

Select Create ontology. The ontology opens on its overview, ready for its first generation.
A new database comes with a first API key. Foundry never keeps or shows its token; right after you create the ontology, its overview says so once and links to the database’s keys in the Helix dashboard, where you can revoke it or make your own.
A new database takes a few minutes to start. Until it answers, the ontology’s pages say it is starting and read it again by themselves, and a load waits for it. Creating a database needs a Helix plan on the workspace. Without one, the form links to billing in the Helix dashboard and offers the databases you already have.

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The overview

An ontology’s overview shows its current version as a scene or as a schema, and what needs doing next: a generated version to review, or a current version that isn’t loaded yet.
The Customer contracts overview with a Version 3 is ready to review callout and the current version's scene
The sidebar lists the ontology’s pages: Overview, Generations, Schema versions, Documents, Data loads and Explorer.

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Delete an ontology

Select the bin on the overview. Foundry deletes the ontology, its versions and documents, and, in the background, everything its loads wrote into the database, including links your own data added to those records. The database and its other data stay. The database can take a new ontology once that removal finishes.

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Who can do what

Owners and admins create and delete ontologies, and need write access to the database’s Helix project to do so. Members see every ontology. A member who can’t read the database’s project sees the ontology without its database’s details or contents.

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Next steps

Generate an ontology

Draft a version from your synced tables.

Upload documents

Add the files a load reads for names and facts.