Specifications and Standards

Mostly open standards, manuals, and specifications.

  • ACME Protocol (RFC 8555) — automated certificate issuance and renewal, e.g. Let's Encrypt
  • Agent to Agent Protocol (A2A) — interoperability protocol for AI agents to collaborate across platforms
  • agents.json — machine-readable manifest describing an AI agent's capabilities and interfaces
  • AMQP 1.0 — open standard wire protocol for message-oriented middleware
  • Architectural Decision Records (ADR) — lightweight documents capturing architectural decisions and their context
  • AsyncAPI — specification for describing event-driven and message-based APIs
  • Building Communities (GitHub) — GitHub's guide to healthy open source community practices
  • Cargo Book — official documentation for Rust's package manager and build tool
  • CloudEvents — vendor-neutral specification for describing event data in a common way
  • CommonMark — rigorously specified, standardized version of Markdown
  • Container Network Interface (CNI) — specification and libraries for configuring container network interfaces
  • Containerd — industry-standard container runtime with an emphasis on simplicity and portability
  • Conventional Commits — commit message convention that enables automated versioning and changelogs
  • CORS — mechanism letting web pages request resources across origins safely
  • CSV (RFC 4180) — common format for comma-separated tabular data
  • CUE — configuration and validation language with strong typing and constraints
  • CycloneDX — software bill of materials (SBOM) standard for security and supply chain analysis
  • Development Containers — specification for reproducible, containerized development environments
  • Docker Compose — YAML format for defining multi-container applications
  • Dockerfile — reference for the container image build instruction format
  • EditorConfig — file format for consistent editor settings across projects and IDEs
  • Event Destinations — open specification for delivering events to HTTP endpoints
  • Fetch — living standard defining the web's resource-fetching API
  • Gateway API — Kubernetes API for ingress and service mesh traffic management
  • GGUF Format — binary file format for storing quantized LLM models
  • Git Conventions — official Git documentation and usage conventions
  • GitHub Actions — GitHub's CI/CD workflow syntax and documentation
  • GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM) — GitHub's CommonMark extension with tables, task lists, and strikethrough
  • GraphQL — strongly typed query language and schema system for APIs
  • GraphQL over HTTP — conventions for serving GraphQL queries over HTTP
  • gRPC — high-performance RPC framework built on Protocol Buffers and HTTP/2
  • gRPC-Web — gRPC variant usable from browser-based JavaScript clients
  • Helm Chart Spec — packaging format and structure for Kubernetes applications
  • HTML — WHATWG living standard for the core language of the web
  • HTTP Caching (RFC 9111) — semantics of HTTP caches and caching headers
  • HTTP Semantics (RFC 9110) — core semantics of HTTP independent of version
  • HTTP/2 (RFC 9113) — second major HTTP version with multiplexing and header compression
  • HTTP/3 (RFC 9114) — HTTP over QUIC, running on UDP instead of TCP
  • in-toto — framework for verifying software supply chain integrity end to end
  • JOSE Suite (JWS, JWE, JWK, JWA) — standards for signing and encrypting JSON-based claims
  • JSON (RFC 8259) — lightweight text format for structured data interchange
  • JSON Lines — newline-delimited JSON format for streaming and log data
  • JSON Merge Patch (RFC 7396) — simple merge-based format for partially updating JSON documents
  • JSON Patch (RFC 6902) — operation-based format for describing changes to JSON documents
  • JSON Pointer (RFC 6901) — syntax for addressing a specific value inside a JSON document
  • JSON Schema — vocabulary for annotating and validating JSON documents
  • JSON Web Token (JWT) — compact, signed token format for claims between parties
  • JSON-RPC — stateless, lightweight remote procedure call protocol encoded in JSON
  • Keep a Changelog — conventions for maintaining a human-readable project changelog
  • Kubernetes API Concepts — core concepts for working with the Kubernetes API
  • Kubernetes API Conventions — design conventions all Kubernetes-style APIs follow
  • Kubernetes RBAC — role-based access control for Kubernetes resources
  • Kustomize — template-free Kubernetes configuration customization
  • LLM Gateway Patterns — patterns for routing and managing traffic to LLM providers
  • LMQL — query language for constrained, programmatic interaction with LLMs
  • Markdown — the original Markdown syntax by John Gruber
  • Mermaid Diagram Syntax — text-based syntax for generating diagrams and flowcharts
  • Model Context Protocol (MCP) — open protocol for connecting AI models to tools and data sources
  • MQTT — lightweight publish-subscribe messaging protocol for IoT
  • NATS — lightweight, high-performance messaging system for microservices and edge
  • NATS Protocol — wire protocol reference for NATS clients
  • OAuth 2.0 — industry-standard authorization framework for delegated access
  • OAuth 2.1 — consolidated, security-hardened update to OAuth 2.0
  • Open Application Model (OAM) — model for describing cloud-native applications independently of infrastructure
  • Open Container Interface (OCI) — open standards for container formats and runtimes
  • Open Graph Protocol — metadata protocol controlling how URLs appear when shared on social media
  • Open Policy Agent (OPA) — general-purpose policy engine using the Rego language
  • OpenAPI — standard for describing RESTful APIs
  • OpenAPI Arazzo — specification for describing sequences of API calls and workflows
  • OpenAPI Schema Object — reference for the OpenAPI data type schema object
  • OpenFeature — open standard for feature flag management
  • OpenGitOps — principles for GitOps-style declarative infrastructure
  • OpenID Connect — identity layer on top of OAuth 2.0 for authentication
  • OpenID for Verifiable Credentials — OpenID extensions for issuing and presenting verifiable digital credentials
  • OpenMetrics — standard for exposing metric data, derived from the Prometheus format
  • Open Responses — open specification for LLM response formats across providers
  • OpenRPC — standard for describing JSON-RPC APIs, analogous to OpenAPI
  • OpenSSF Best Practices — criteria badge for secure open source development practices
  • OpenSSF Scorecards — automated security health checks for open source projects
  • OpenTelemetry — vendor-neutral APIs and SDKs for traces, metrics, and logs
  • PASETO — platform-agnostic security tokens positioned as a safer JWT alternative
  • PKCE (RFC 7636) — proof key extension securing OAuth public clients
  • Podman REST API — REST API reference for the daemonless Podman container engine
  • PostgreSQL Wire Protocol — frontend/backend communication protocol for PostgreSQL
  • Problem Details (RFC 9457) — standard format for machine-readable HTTP API error responses
  • Prometheus Exposition Format — text format for exposing metrics to Prometheus
  • Push API — W3C API for delivering push messages to web applications
  • Request for Comments (RFC) — the IETF's archival series of internet standards documents
  • Request for Decision (RFD) — Oxide's discussion-first format for proposing technical decisions
  • REUSE.software — specification for declaring copyright and licensing per file
  • RSocket — binary, reactive application protocol for byte stream transports
  • Rust API Guidelines — community conventions for designing idiomatic Rust APIs
  • SAML — XML-based standard for federated authentication and SSO
  • SCIM (RFC 7644) — protocol for automating user identity provisioning across systems
  • Semantic Versioning (SemVer) — versioning scheme conveying compatibility through MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH
  • Server-Sent Events (SSE) — standard for pushing real-time events from server to browser over HTTP
  • Service Binding — specification for connecting applications to backing services
  • Service Workers — scriptable network proxy enabling offline-capable web apps
  • Sigstore — open standard for keyless software signing and transparency
  • Skills.sh — open directory and format for AI agent skills
  • SLO/SLI (Google SRE) — Google's SRE guidance on service level objectives and indicators
  • SLSA — security framework with levels for software supply chain integrity
  • SPDX — standard format for software bill of materials and license identifiers
  • SQL Standard (ISO 9075) — the ISO/IEC standard for the SQL database language
  • StatsD / DogStatsD — simple text protocol for application metrics aggregation
  • Structured Logging (RFC 5424) — the syslog protocol with structured data elements
  • The Twelve-Factor App — methodology for building portable, scalable software-as-a-service apps
  • TOML — minimal configuration file format designed to be obvious
  • Tool Use / Function Calling — patterns for giving LLMs access to external tools
  • Update Framework (TUF) — framework for secure software update systems resistant to compromise
  • URL / WHATWG Living Standards — living standard defining URL parsing and serialization
  • WASI Proposals — modular system interface specifications for WebAssembly
  • Web Components — suite of standards for reusable custom HTML elements
  • Web Push — protocol for pushing messages to browsers even when the site is closed
  • WebAssembly (Wasm) — portable binary instruction format for near-native execution in browsers
  • WebAuthn — web standard for public key-based, phishing-resistant authentication
  • WebRTC — real-time peer-to-peer audio, video, and data communication for browsers
  • WebSockets — full-duplex communication channel over a single TCP connection
  • XML — extensible markup language for structured documents
  • YAML — human-friendly data serialization language commonly used for configuration