Minimal valid spec

A minimal valid Catenator spec has five fields. These are the only fields the standard requires. Everything else is optional — present when the system's complexity warrants it, absent when it does not.

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The five required fields

spec:
  subject: SIC publishing platform
  author: Parth Upadhye
  organization: Engaged Inquiry
  version: 1
  date: 2026-03-09

subject — what this spec is about. The system being described. One line. Plain language.

author — who wrote this version of the spec. A person, not a team. The person responsible for the decisions in this version.

organization — the entity under whose authority the spec is written. Optional if the author is an individual acting independently, but SHOULD be included when the spec is written in a professional or institutional context.

version — which iteration this is. Versions are integers. Version 1 is the first published version. Versions are immutable — a change to any spec content produces a new version number.

date — when this version was written. ISO 8601 format: YYYY-MM-DD.

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Adding a descriptor

A spec with only provenance fields is valid but not useful. The first meaningful addition is a descriptor. The utility descriptor is the natural starting point — it names what the system does, for whom, and to what end.

spec:
  subject: SIC publishing platform
  author: Parth Upadhye
  organization: Engaged Inquiry
  version: 1
  date: 2026-03-09

utility:
  - name: publish satirical jargon definitions
    for: reader
    produces: card-format definitions of business jargon
    delivers: physical and digital products via direct and wholesale channels

This spec is now minimal and meaningful. An agent reading it knows what is being built and for whom. It cannot build from it yet — more descriptors are needed — but it knows enough to ask the right next questions.

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What makes a spec valid

A valid Catenator spec:

• MUST include subject, author, version, and date
• MUST use only descriptor names defined in the standard or declared as domain descriptors in the referenced vocabulary
• MUST use only meta-vocabulary terms as defined in section 2
• MUST declare any vocabulary it references in the provenance block
• SHOULD include organization when written in a professional or institutional context

A spec that meets these conditions is valid regardless of how many descriptors it uses or how fully any descriptor is developed.

Start minimal. Add what the system requires. A spec that grows is better than a spec that never begins.

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