Symbols

A symbol fragment names a declaration: a function, method, class, type, interface, enum, or top-level constant. It also names a member whose identity is part of an API contract: a class field, a struct field, or an interface/protocol property anchors as Type.field, and a protobuf message field or enum value (whose number is wire-breaking) anchors the same way. Nesting uses . (Server.VerifySignature, User.email). Resolution is structural (tree-sitter queries against the parsed file), not textual.

If the name matches more than one declaration in the file (two types that share a field name, overloads, re-declarations), resolution fails closed: the ref is broken and the fix is to qualify it with the full path (Type.member) or use a region marker. An exact top-level name wins over a member that merely shares its leaf, so a top-level declaration is never shadowed by a nested field. The tool never guesses.

Regions and the @ sigil

The @ sigil makes the resolver explicit: #name is always a symbol lookup, #@name is always a marker lookup. There is no fallback from one to the other. Without the sigil, a deleted marker whose name happens to collide with a symbol would silently re-anchor the ref to the wrong code; with it, the result is a loud "region not found".