PROJECTION
What stays in the data
The five response value shapes and the meaning of absent fields.
Small, typed values
item: id plus title or text, with optional source URL, author, published_at, metrics, media and reply identity.
profile_card: id and name, with optional bio, verification, followers, following, post count, location and source URL.
leaderboard: native rank and title, with optional heat, URL and query.
distribution and timeseries are additional contract shapes for specialized capabilities. Their presence in the schema does not mean a currently enabled core cell returns them.
Absent means unavailable
Missing metrics do not mean zero. Do not invent a source URL or turn a heat index into views. Original public wording and available source identifiers are preserved; SocialToAI does not silently replace the body with an AI summary.
Platform-specific facts live in platform_extra. Compare metrics only when their meanings and collection times are compatible. Social samples are not population-level evidence.
Trace a call without keeping its body in logs
Run and Cell records retain operational and billing metadata. Upstream response bodies are not stored in the operational Run log. Short-lived encrypted replay caches support idempotency and are hard-deleted at expiry.
Source links and media may expire or become unavailable. fetched_at records collection time; it does not guarantee a permanent copy.