Open Specifications – Design Philosophy
Every specification published under Open Specifications follows the same design philosophy, applied to a different boundary each time. This page states that philosophy once, so individual specifications do not need to restate it.
- Boundary First — every specification begins by identifying the boundary it declares, before defining any format around it.
- Declarative — a specification states what is canonical or true according to its publisher. It does not prescribe behavior or interpretation to whoever reads it.
- Technology Neutral — no dependency on a specific platform, search engine, or model provider.
- Machine Readable — a structure any software can parse without ambiguity.
- Versioned — every specification, and every instance published under it, carries its own version.
- Independent — each specification can be adopted on its own. None requires adopting another.
A specification may add principles specific to the layer it addresses. It does not need to, and should not, restate these.