Type specs vs reprs vs objects

There are 3 different forms that a type can take.
A type-spec is the human-readable/writable format that you will actually use in code.
A type-expression (et:repr) is a structural representation of a type-spec after being parsed.
A type-object (et:type) is a less-expressive, normalized representation of a type. Type-checking an expression evaluates to an et:type.

	spec	et:repr	et:type
Human readable	[X]	[ ]	[ ]
Contains datatypes	[X]	[X]	[X]
Contains aliases	[X]	[X]	[X]
Contains unions	[X]	[X]	[X]
Contains intersections	[X]	[X]	[ ]
Contains type-operations	[X]	[X]	[ ]
Contains type-macro invocations	[X]	[ ]	[ ]
Contains type-variables	[X]	[X]	[ ]
Contains variable narrows	[ ]	[ ]	[X]

spec
 | Parse type syntax
 | Resolve alias/datatype/type-operation/type-variable names
 | Expand type-macros
 V
et:repr
 | Evaluate type-operations
 | Substitute type-variables
 V
et:type