Why this matters: a conlang can be a quick exploration or a designed artifact. The Spec is the dial. If you know which level you are writing, you stop pinning fields by accident and start getting the language you intended.
The one idea
A Spec is partial by design. Every omitted field is sampled from the generator's defaults. The same Spec plus seed produces the same model, so a small Spec is still reproducible. You choose a level by choosing what to pin. See the Spec reference.
Three levels at a glance
| Level | You pin | You get |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · Minimal | Name and seed | Everything sampled; useful for exploration |
| 2 · Partial | Inventory, templates, word count | Controlled sound and size; fresh vocabulary |
| 3 · Rich | Sounds, words, grammar, discourse, semantics | Designed output with little left to chance |
What we generated
All three runs used the same command and all linted clean:
conlang generate --spec <level>.yaml --out <level>.json --strict| Run | Lexemes | Words | Signature trait |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minimal | 249 | 1,466 | Large sampled inventory |
| Partial | 139 | 584 | Latin inventory, ergative |
| Rich | 101 | 184 | IPA, postnominal, discourse, model |
Rich is smaller because its concept list was pinned to twelve items. The dial is specification, not word count.
Choose the level
Retrieval check
Which level pins only the name and seed?
Second check
Which level declares predicate extensions for evaluation?
Do it once
- Open
out/language-levels/spec/level-2-partial.yaml. - Change
word_countfrom60to20. - Regenerate with
--strictand compare the lexeme count. - Ask: did you change the sound system or only the size?
Expected: the inventory and templates stay put; the lexicon shrinks. That is the difference between pinning and sampling.
Primary source: read the Spec reference before your next language. It is the ground truth for what each key pins.
Ask your teacher: if a generated language feels wrong, ask which field to pin next. That is usually faster than rewriting the whole Spec.
Reference: Three generation levels cheat sheet.