Implementation Design Notes

Implementation-focused design notes for specific subsystems. For high-level architecture see Architecture. For normative specs see Specification. Historical implementation plans and superseded migration notes live under Plans, not this active design index.

Core Design

Document	Description
api-and-convention-freeze.md	Clean-break release posture for public API, API consistency detection, crate ownership, naming conventions, docs ownership, and audit/remediation workflow
supported-ops.md	Crate-by-crate inventory of supported primal and AD operations
tensor.md	Tensor representation, ownership model
tensor-prims.md	Tensor backend protocol and execution surface
algebra.md	Algebra boundary, external numeric extensions, tropical paths
einsum.md	Einsum public API, N-ary contraction tree, algebra dispatch
contraction-pipeline.md	Binary contraction pipeline, copy elision
dot-general-overhead.md	Fixed-cost analysis for many small dot_general contractions
dynamic-symbolic-shapes.md	Dynamic and symbolic shape metadata contract. Covers DynamicTruncate, transpose_scatter, symbolic slice_sizes, and the Exact/UpperBound/Unknown extent model. This is the key design doc for understanding how tenferro differs from XLA-style shape-specialized compilation.
gpu-backend-design.md	GPU backend architecture
xla-backend.md	Experimental StableHLO lowering and PJRT plugin-loading peer executor over static GraphProgram values
inplace-indexing.md	Partial in-place updates design
linalg.md	Linalg public/composite layer
linalg-prims.md	Backend-facing factorization and solve contracts
capi.md	C-API: opaque handles, DLPack, einsum + SVD + AD
capi-error-handling.md	C-API error handling policy
testing.md	Testing and performance verification strategy
review-decision-records.md	Relationship between historical plans, reviewer-facing work logs, and durable design records

Reference

See Reference for external system surveys and comparison notes.