lyng/proposals/serialization_format_registry.md

Serialization Format Registry

Current status:

• no global serialization-format registry
• formats are exported explicitly from modules and used explicitly, e.g. Lynon.encode(...), Json.decode(...), or MyFormat.encode(...)

Why no registry now:

• explicit module exports already solve the current use case
• a registry adds global mutable state and naming semantics we do not currently need
• there is no current runtime feature that needs format discovery by string name

When a registry may become worth adding:

• config-driven format selection, e.g. "format": "json"
• host-side introspection such as "list installed serialization formats"
• collision detection across independently loaded modules
• admin or tooling APIs that need to resolve a format without importing its module explicitly

If added later, the registry should be:

• optional, not required for normal explicit usage
• based on stable fully qualified ids, not just short export names
• designed as a host/tooling facility first, not as part of ordinary script-level serialization