<ref xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" target="http://nodegoat.net/">nodegoat</ref> is a web-based data management, network analysis and visualisation environment. nodegoat allows scholars to build datasets based on their own data model and offers relational modes of analysis with spatial and diachronic contextualisation. By combining these elements within one environment, scholars are able to instantly process, analyse and visualise complex datasets relationally, diachronically and spatially; trailblazing. nodegoat follows an object-oriented approach throughout its core functionalities. Borrowing from actor-network theory this means that people, events, artefacts, and sources are treated as equal: objects, and hierarchy depends solely on the composition of the network: relations. This object-oriented approach advocates the self-identification of individual objects and maps the correlation of objects within the collective.