Features for the next six months (accessible HTML export, paperpack and
Lode on packages, the personal bundle):
- Zipped packages: the oracle writes and reads `.sct.zip` archives under
the rules of spec/12 §12.2; validate.py and load.py accept them; a
byte-identical zip of the tiny package joins the fixtures, and two
broken archives (traversal, symbolic link) join fixtures/invalid.
- The target set of targeted F3 (spec/08 §8.10) is computed by the
oracle and pinned by vectors/targets.jsonl under each digit rule; the
rule now covers cells as well as sentences and the leaves of anchored
containers, and defines a node's section.
- scienting-checklist/1 (provisional): a conformance check of an export,
covered by a receipt as ["checklist", id, hash] (spec/08 §8.11), with a
WCAG 2.1 AA fixture and its receipt.
- QA reports are signed like receipts (spec/08 §8.9).
- A `description` annotation body with role alt or long, so an
accessible export can find a confirmed figure description; the layer
fixture carries one, and the store's body-kind constraint allows it.
- scienting-spot-check/1, the seed payload, is registered with a schema.
- exercise, submission and grade are provisional until a course has
used them.
Audit fixes, each with a vector or a broken package where one was
missing:
- Folder packages: symbolic links are refused on validate and load,
manifest paths must not collide under case folding, listed files are
matched by exact name, files are hashed in chunks under a size limit.
- Files are compared byte for byte, so CR LF, a byte order mark, NaN,
a lone surrogate or invalid UTF-8 is refused instead of translated;
integers beyond 2^53 are read as doubles, as canonical JSON writes them.
- Receipts: signature.key must equal by and the key must be valid when
signed; a qa receipt's nodes must be the sample at the original's
hashes, its scope must name qa.of, its errors must be sampled nodes;
statuses are computed once, iteratively, so chains of spot-checks
hundreds deep settle; Base64 and manifest shape errors become refusals
instead of tracebacks; counts and the fidelity of roster-less packages
are recomputed.
- The gate enforces rule 11 of spec/11 §11.4: changed nodes are
validated against the node schema and the references between nodes
are checked, so a set to a bad value, an insert with unknown
properties or a delete of a referenced header cell is refused; a
relabel to null drops the label; a reclassify drops foreign
attributes; a split strips whitespace across runs; ids.jsonl order
follows spec/04 §4.4 in every state; a move after itself is refused.
- Anchors: the relabel rule requires that nothing else changed below the
node; an alias chain ending in a deletion no longer crashes resolve.
- Notation: a script after an empty group applies to the previous atom
({}^{14}C); letters are defined by Unicode block in spec/05 §5.4 and
the oracle; \left) is complex.
- Page fingerprints delete whitespace before folding, so "10 -20" and
"10-20" fold alike (spec/07 §7.1).
- Grades are summed with exact decimals; the reviewer error bound is
computed with integer arithmetic.
- receipts and revocations are keyed by (doc_key, id) in SQL, since one
revocation may be carried by several packages.
Checking:
- tools/stress.py: seeded randomized property tests over canonical JSON,
normalization, notation, random correction walks, anchor resolution,
Merkle roots, spot-check samples, error bounds, fingerprints, mutated
archives and packages, rights and spot-check chains; CI runs it.
- check.py verifies every count and version the prose states against
the repository, the zipped fixture and crafted archives, the checklist
coverage, and nine more broken packages.
- CONTRIBUTING.md gains a release checklist.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Guides
These guides explain manuspec to someone meeting it for the first time. They serve three readers: a newcomer who has not seen the problem before, an implementer who will write a reader, writer, converter or checker, and an expert who knows the neighboring standards. The specification says exactly what each format is. The guides say what each format is for, with examples drawn from the fixtures.
| Guide | For |
|---|---|
| Overview | What manuspec is, who it serves, and how its parts fit together. |
| Concepts | The ideas behind the formats, one at a time, each with a real example. |
| Walkthrough | One paper, from a flawed first reading to a corrected, reviewed and signed document. |
| Examples | Things to run: checking hashes by hand, reading a package with a few lines of Python, querying a database. |
| Rationale | Why the formats look the way they do, and the questions they leave open. |
| Comparison | How manuspec compares with JATS, TEI, W3C Web Annotation and other schemas. |
| FAQ | Short answers to the questions people ask first. |
| Glossary | Every term, in a sentence. |
Reading orders
Newcomer. Spend a first afternoon on the overview, then the walkthrough with the fixture open beside it, then the examples. Read the concepts when a term in the walkthrough needs more than the glossary gives.
Implementer. Start with the specification's reading paths, which list the chapters to read for a reader, a converter, a store and a validator. Chapters 0, 1, 3, 4 and 5 are needed for any of them. Next, run the section "Test your implementation against a vector" in the examples. Check your work against the vectors and the fixtures. Chapter 22 of the specification defines conformance.
Expert. Read the overview for scope and for what manuspec is not, then the comparison for how it differs from existing standards.
After that, read the rationale for the reason behind each rule and the questions it leaves open.
It ends with a list of limits.
Section 0.4 of the specification and registry/formats.json give the status of each format: the version is 0.1.0, and each format is candidate or provisional.