A space is a named partition of data inside a branch. Spaces and branches are Strata’s two organizing dimensions — neither is a data type of its own. Your data always lives in one of the five primitives; branches isolate history across forks, and spaces scope which slice of that data you see within a single branch. This page is the mental model; the verbs are in the Spaces guide.

Two dimensions, not three data types

Think of it as a grid. A database has one or more branches. Within each branch, data is partitioned into spaces. Within each space, you use the five primitives.

• Branch answers “which line of history?” — forked, isolated, time-travellable.
• Space answers “which partition within this line?” — tenants, sessions, datasets.
• Primitive answers “what shape of data?” — KV, JSON, vectors, events, graph.

Every branch has a default space, and you can add more. A command targets a space with --space <name>; omit it and you get default.

Spaces scope every primitive

Each space holds its own independent instance of every primitive. The same key in two spaces refers to two different values — write report in an analytics space and the default space does not see it. This is true for KV, JSON, vectors, events, and graphs alike: a space is a clean partition across the whole data model, not just one primitive.

Spaces compose with branches

A branch contains spaces, and forking a branch carries its spaces along — the fork starts with the same partitions as its parent, then diverges independently. So the two dimensions stack: fork a branch to get an isolated copy of history, and within it use spaces to keep unrelated data apart.

Spaces or branches?

• Reach for a space to keep related data organized inside one line of history that lives and versions together — one space per tenant, per agent session, or per dataset.
• Reach for a branch when you want an isolated copy of history you can fork, time-travel, and discard.

They are complementary, not alternatives: a per-tenant space inside a per-feature branch is a perfectly normal layout.

Next

• Spaces guide — the list / create / exists / delete verbs and their semantics.
• Branches — the other organizing dimension.
• Primitives — the data shapes a space partitions.