Excel Header Projection

Excel templates are generated from the normalized schema. The header is a projection, not an independent format definition.

Why Generate Headers

Manually maintained spreadsheet headers tend to drift from code:

a field is renamed in code but not in Excel;
a type changes but old rows still look valid;
a designer adds a column that no runtime reads;
validation rules are documented in comments instead of enforced.

Sora avoids this by generating the workbook structure from schema.

What the Header Contains

Generated rows include:

table metadata: table name, mode, key, scope, and schema hash;
stable field names;
type hints;
scope hints;
validation and parser rules;
comments for editors.

Only row data should be treated as authored content. Header rows can be regenerated whenever the schema changes.

Practical Workflow

Change the schema.
Regenerate Excel templates.
Move or paste existing data rows into the updated template.
Run sora build or sora export to validate values and references.
Run sora build to produce exports and generated code.

This keeps Excel useful for editing while keeping the schema authoritative.