UPDATES
Updates
A running record of what's shipped to the specification, the registry, and this site, in the order it happened. This is a changelog, not a roadmap: every entry below is something you can already read, use, or check against today.
Changelog
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Registry passes 100 jurisdictions; this site's mirror resynced
The registry now publishes 708 schema documents across 103 jurisdictions, up from 184 documents across 11 when this site's mirror was last pinned. Coverage spans six service verticals: passport, visa, DMV and vehicle licensing, taxes, business formation, and national ID & civic documents. This site's vendored mirror has been resynced to that state, so the registry browser, every generated reference page, and
registry/index.jsondescribe current coverage rather than a July snapshot. CATALOG.md in the open repository tracks coverage per jurisdiction and per vertical, including the sources confirmed to be dead ends. -
Reference tooling: a client library, an MCP server, and an installable Skill
Three non-normative reference implementations are published in the open repository, each a thin adapter over one shared core so lookup and validation behavior cannot drift between them:
@govschema/client, for listing, searching, fetching, and meta-schema-validating registry documents from code; a Model Context Protocol server exposing that core as tools an agent can call; and an installable Skill for Claude-family agents. All three are read-only and describe-only by construction: none can fill or submit a form, which is the boundary set out in the agent safety model. They are conveniences, not requirements: plain HTTPS fetch plus JSON Schema validation remains sufficient. See how agents consume GovSchema. -
Conformance fixtures for agent behavior
Published schemas now carry 3,446 machine-checkable conformance fixtures across 445 schema versions, pairing valid application packets with mutations that a conforming consumer must reject: missing required fields, enum and pattern violations, unmet conditional requirements, and missing required documents. Per GSP-0016, the suite stops before submission by construction rather than by convention, so an implementer can check that an agent's field-collection logic behaves the way the standard expects without GovSchema becoming the automation layer.
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Versioning: supersession separated from deprecation
VERSIONING.md contradicted itself on what becomes of a published version once a newer one exists. It now states the rule plainly: a published version directory is immutable and stays byte-for-byte in place, and publishing
2.0.0says nothing about whether1.0.0is deprecated.deprecatedis a claim about the government source, meaning the process changed or was retired, so it is expressed by publishing a new immutable version carrying that status, never by editing a version already published. -
Every source URL a schema cites is re-fetched in CI
A schema is only as trustworthy as the sources its verification record cites, and review caught four cases where a citation had been fabricated. Field content was accurate every time, but in the most recent case two of three claimed source URLs had never existed. Continuous integration now re-fetches every URL a changed
schema.jsonorVERIFICATION.mdcites and cross-checks anything that fails against the Wayback Machine: no archival history at all fails the pull request, while a source that was once live, or that blocks automated clients, is reported as staleness rather than fabrication. See how verification works. -
Spec v0.3 gains municipal and county jurisdictions
GSP-0021 is folded into spec v0.3: an optional
jurisdiction.localitymember, plus a matching identifier segment between subdivision and authority, so a city or county form, such as a Miami-Dade County process rather than merely a Florida one, has a well-formed identity instead of being rounded up to the state. Additive, like every v0.3 change so far; a document with no locality is unaffected. -
Registry browser, machine catalog, and a reference page for every schema
The registry is now a searchable, faceted index. Filter by jurisdiction, category, and status, with the full filter state in the URL. Every published schema id resolves to a generated reference page at
registry/{id}(field reference, verification record, version history, related schemas), and agents get a machine-readable catalog atregistry/index.json. -
DS-82 worked example independently re-verified, advances to v2.0.0
The DS-82 worked example, the schema behind this site's interview demo, has been independently re-verified against the live
travel.state.govsource and the current fillable Form DS-82, under the adoptedmanual-source-review-v1practice. The review found real drift (an eligibility-gate condition and the sex-marker enum), so the document advances with a MAJOR version bump to2.0.0, targets spec v0.3, and its lifecycle status moves toverified. See the schema's own verification record for the method, date, and reviewer. -
Registry mirror advances to spec v0.1–v0.3
This site's vendored registry mirror now tracks the canonical repository's current state (45 schemas across 8 jurisdictions, up from 24) instead of a fixed v0.1-only snapshot, and mirrors all three shipped meta-schemas (v0.1, v0.2, v0.3) so every entry's
$schemaURL actually resolves. All three lines are additive per VERSIONING.md, so nothing in the existing worked example changed at the time: the DS-82 worked example and the interview demo still targeted spec v0.1 until the independent re-verification above. -
About, Community, and Updates published
This site's foundation pages are live: About explains who publishes the standard and how the specification changes; Community explains how to propose or improve a schema; and this page is the project's changelog, with an RSS feed so you don't have to check back manually.
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Site rebuilt around the specification
Navigation now leads with the specification itself: a dedicated specification hub links its three chapters, alongside the registry, verification, and docs. The homepage is shorter, and the schema-driven interview moved to its own demo page.
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Live interview demo
An agent can now walk a real registry schema end to end on this site: the interview demo drives a conversation against the DS-82 passport-renewal schema exactly as published in the registry, so you can watch a schema being consumed, not just read about it.
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Verification stated up front
Every schema-reference page now opens with its verification status, last-verified date, and the source it was checked against, before any other detail. See how verification works.
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Specification reaches v0.3
The open specification folded in seven accepted proposals covering field sensitivity classification, file constraints, schema maturity levels, richer conditional logic, documents as a first-class part of a schema, and a safety boundary for how a conforming agent may act on one. All are additive; every v0.2 document is still a valid v0.3 document. At the time of this entry, this site's own worked example (DS-82) still targeted spec v0.1; it has since advanced to v0.3, as noted above. See spec/v0.3 in the open repository for the current specification text.
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Registry listing becomes self-updating
The registry page is now generated directly from the published schema files instead of a hand-maintained list, so it can't drift out of sync with what the registry actually contains.
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Specification reaches v0.2
An optional
editionaxis was added for forms that reissue every tax or award year, such as an annual tax return, so a new year is modeled as a sibling edition rather than a breaking version bump. See GSP-0005. -
Specification v0.1 accepted; first schemas published
The founding document envelope, which is how a schema states its identity, source, verification, fields, and flow, was accepted as GSP-0001, and the first reference schemas were published against it.