In case it isn't clear, this is more a thought experiment than anything at this point. It is interesting to think about where we use ids and where the need is to refer to any version vs. a specific version of a card. It is clear that the ids need to be assigned by the Store, and they are (by AR now). If it is necessary for card_ids and action_ids to be either 1) disjoint or 2) when there is a card_id and action_id that are the same (equal) the action is for that card.  That might typically be the first action when the card is created, but it doesn't have to be.

WQL will be one of the harder parts to re-design in these terms, but I think the result could be very worthwhile. The parsing of queries probably doesn't change much, but the process of executing searches moves from being mostly a Card thing to being part of the Card Store. Anything related to the references table is also inside the Store (for support of queries), and similarly the cards table would be designed to support search by WQL as compiled into AR queries into Store tables.

It will also put the updating of references into the store. Card code won't need to know how references and history is represented in the Store, the Store just does what it needs to based on the actions in processes, and after that reads and searches will return the new data. The Store might be lazy about how much work it does at the point of commit, all it has to do is commit the actions to a transaction log (our history tables already are DB style roll-back/forward logs) and only update what's in the cache for a given card_id when the store is asked for the latest action on that card. The reference update queue only has be fully processes if you need to do a search now. You can be lazy about lots of stuff.

Immutability means that the Card objects have to obey the immutability contract. If you change it, it becomes a new object (which when stored/committed will get a new action_id), and mutators have to return new objects that you need to store locally (often overwriting a local variable that had the original one), but the more functional our code is, the more it just returns a new (vs. mutated) object up the function stack.

the needs section begins "Remove activerecord dependency from Card.". That's not a need, that's a step in an implementation plan. Can you connect this to needs?