Complete internal categories

Abstract

Internal categories feature notions of limit and completeness, as originally proposed in the context of the effective topos. This paper sets out the theory of internal completeness in a general context, spelling out the details of the definitions of limit and completeness and clarifying some subtleties. Remarkably, complete internal categories are also cocomplete and feature a suitable version of the adjoint functor theorem. Such results are understood as consequences of the intrinsic smallness of internal categories.