A category is cocomplete if it has all small colimits: that is, if every small diagram where is a small category has a colimit in . Equivalently, a category is cocomplete if it has all small wide pushouts and an initial object.
The most natural morphisms between cocomplete categories are the cocontinuous functors.
A category is cocomplete if and only if it has small coproducts and reflexive coequalisers.
Dually, a category with all small limits is a complete category.
A category is cocomplete if and only if is complete, so the abstract properties of cocompleteness mimic those of completeness.
If a category has not all small colimits but all finite colimits, then it is a finitely cocomplete category.
Many familiar categories of mathematical structures are cocomplete: to name just a few examples, Set, Grp, Ab, Vect and Top are cocomplete.
For a small category , the presheaf category is cocomplete, and the Yoneda embedding exhibits it as the free cocompletion of .
Last revised on June 30, 2025 at 15:14:39. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.