Epilogue

From conceptual model to running database

What you built

Starting from a real dataset, you:

stated its facts and constraints in plain sentences,
modeled places, companies, facilities, commodities and trade flows, choosing between alternatives at each step,
implemented the result directly in TypeQL, including a seven-role relation with an optional role and attributes of its own,
watched the database enforce the model on queries, on writes, at commit, and on changes to the model itself,
queried by type, by role, polymorphically and recursively,
queried and documented the model with the same language,
and worked around what the schema cannot express.

There was no separate logical schema: the ER diagrams and the TypeQL describe the same model, apart from the workarounds in Chapter Nine.

Extend the model with more of the Trase dataset: ports of export, sustainability commitments, or ownership shares as an attribute of ownership.
Model a domain of your own. The schema modeling guide covers naming, subtyping versus composition, and constraint design.
Take TypeDB Academy for a systematic course in TypeQL, including modeling schemas.
Look up any statement or annotation in the TypeQL reference.
Ask questions in the TypeDB Discord.

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Dorn, C., & Pribadi, H. (2024). TypeQL: A type-theoretic & polymorphic query language. Proceedings of the ACM on Management of Data, 2(2), 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1145/3651611
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Olivé, A. (2005). Conceptual schema-centric development: A grand challenge for information systems research. In Advanced Information Systems Engineering (CAiSE 2005). Springer.
Send, J. (2026). Building executable entity-relationship models. CEUR Workshop Proceedings, Vol. 4279, 90–93. https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-4279/Paper-158.pdf