The Kleisli category of a monad on has the same objects as , but a morphism is a -map , a “-effectful” arrow into the monad. The identity is the unit , and the composite of with is (written in diagram order). It is the category of free -algebras and sits in the canonical adjunction whose induced monad is . The prototype is , the markov-category whose morphisms are Markov kernels. Likewise and is the partial functions. Kleisli composition is exactly the semantics of sequencing effectful programs.

References

  • Heinrich Kleisli, “Every standard construction is induced by a pair of adjoint functors”, Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 16 (1965)
  • Michele Giry, “A categorical approach to probability theory” (1982)