For a diagram , a limit-preserving functor carries every limiting cone over a diagram to a limiting categorical cone. A limit-reflecting functor has the converse property: a categorical cone is limiting whenever its image is limiting. A limit-creating functor uniquely lifts every specified limiting categorical cone over the image diagram to a categorical cone over , and the lift is limiting. These definitions concern diagrams of the stipulated shape; creation includes the lifting requirement, not merely reflection.
Let be a categorical limit of . The map
is a bijection: the right side consists exactly of compatible families of arrows from , and the categorical limit's universal property gives their unique factorization through . The bijection is induced by the categorical limit projections, so it proves that covariant representables preserve limits, including the empty diagram and its terminal object.
If is representable, it is a limit-preserving functor, and its universal element gives an initial object of , hence a weakly initial singleton.
Conversely, a limit-preserving makes a complete category. For a small diagram , take in . Its distinguished elements form a compatible family in . Categorical limit preservation gives a unique with . The underlying categorical limit factorization of a categorical cone preserves this element, proving the comma-category universal property. For the empty diagram, this uses . This is the construction of limits in a comma category of a limit-preserving functor.
The comma category is locally small since its arrows are subsets of the hom-sets in . By the previous part, its weakly initial set therefore yields an initial object. Part (b) then yields a representation of . Thus representability from a solution set follows with all small categorical limits, rather than finite categorical limits alone.