All data in StrataDB is represented by the Value enum — a closed set of 8 variants. There are no extensions and no implicit coercions.

The 8 Variants

Variant	Description	CLI Example
Null	Absence of value	null
Bool	true / false	true, false
Int	64-bit signed integer	42, -1
Float	64-bit IEEE-754 floating point	3.14, 0.7
String	UTF-8 string	hello, "hello world"
Bytes	Raw binary data	(not directly supported in CLI)
Array	Ordered sequence of values	'[1, 2, 3]' (JSON)
Object	String-keyed map (JSON object)	'{"key":"value"}' (JSON)

Type Rules

StrataDB enforces strict typing with no surprises:

Rule	Description	Example
VAL-1	Exactly 8 types, no more	No Timestamp, Decimal, or custom types
VAL-2	No implicit coercions	Storing an integer doesn’t create a float
VAL-3	Different types are never equal	Int(1) != Float(1.0)
VAL-4	Bytes are not strings	Bytes(b"hello") != String("hello")
VAL-5	IEEE-754 float equality	NaN != NaN, -0.0 == 0.0

CLI Type Detection

The CLI auto-detects types from input format. You rarely need to think about types:

$ strata --cache
strata:default/default> kv put name Alice
(version) 1
strata:default/default> kv put age 30
(version) 1
strata:default/default> kv put score 95.5
(version) 1
strata:default/default> kv put active true
(version) 1
strata:default/default> state set counter 0
(version) 1

Detection Rules

Input Format	Detected Type
true, false	Bool
Digits only (e.g., 42, -1)	Int
Digits with decimal (e.g., 3.14)	Float
null	Null
JSON object '{...}'	Object
JSON array '[...]'	Array
Everything else	String

Reading Values

The CLI displays values in a readable format:

$ strata --cache
strata:default/default> kv put name Alice
(version) 1
strata:default/default> kv get name
"Alice"
strata:default/default> kv put count 42
(version) 1
strata:default/default> kv get count
42
strata:default/default> kv get missing
(nil)

Values that don’t exist return (nil).

Accessor Table

Type	CLI Display
Bool	true / false
Int	42
Float	3.14
String	"Alice"
Null	null
Array	[1, 2, 3]
Object	{"key":"value"}

JSON Interop

The CLI accepts JSON strings for complex values:

$ strata --cache
strata:default/default> json set config $ '{"key":42,"nested":[1,2,3]}'
(version) 1
strata:default/default> json get config
{"key":42,"nested":[1,2,3]}

Edge Cases in JSON Conversion

Value	To JSON	Notes
Float(NaN)	null	Lossy
Float(Infinity)	null	Lossy
Bytes	Base64 string	Lossy round-trip
Int(i64::MAX)	Number	Lossless

The Bytes → JSON → Value round-trip is lossy: bytes become a base64 string, and converting back produces a String, not Bytes.

Event Log Payloads

Event log payloads must be JSON objects. Pass them as JSON strings:

$ strata --cache
strata:default/default> event append tool_call '{"tool":"search"}'
(seq) 1
strata:default/default> event append tool_call '{"tool":"search","results":10}'
(seq) 2

Next

• Transactions — how concurrent access works
• Value Type Reference — complete specification