Standards: version the expectations you ask agents to follow

An agent can read a rule and still have an incomplete picture of what satisfying it means. I want shared standards to connect expectations to applicable configuration, evidence and an explicit adoption decision. A versioned repository gives that conversation a concrete reference.

CTO to Human: what the history tells us

The selected October history covers a coding baseline and the 1.0 assurance release. This is a short public release history, not a year of claimed compliance. The release notes also preserve the difference between reserved tags whose workflows failed and the first bundle actually published.

Engineer to Engineer: the boundary that matters

IDE and command-line configuration can make part of a written standard executable. Reusable checks can gather evidence. A release can identify when requirements changed. Those layers need to agree, but they remain distinct: a passing badge describes a check, while conformance depends on which requirements apply and whether the evidence is sufficient.

Milestones in the public record

• 2026-10-09 — Standards gives coding expectations an executable home. The October coding-standard commit added language guidance with IDE and command-line configuration. It made conventions available as versioned repository material. Project journal.
• 2026-10-10 — Standards 1.0 makes assurance expectations versioned. The 1.0 release records changes to assurance expectations, including applicable fuzzing and badge participation. Its notes also distinguish the first published bundle from earlier reserved tags whose workflows failed. Project journal.

The goal is continuity across people, repositories and agent sessions. Shared expectations are most useful when a contributor can find the rule, understand why it applies and inspect what demonstrates it, without turning every new task into a negotiation from memory.

Explore the standards project hub.

Retrospective written on October 12, 2026, covering the public evidence available for October 12, 2025 through October 12, 2026. Linked journal entries use source event dates; this essay is a newly written retrospective. Quiet months do not imply an unrecorded release, and short-lived projects are not presented as having a full year of activity.