Specification History
This page records material changes to the public AFP specification. It is intentionally narrower than a software changelog: editorial corrections that do not change meaning do not require a new specification entry.
Document status vocabulary
AFP public documents use the following states when status matters:
- Draft — incomplete material not yet presented as a public working reference.
- Working — the current public specification may still change as evidence, implementation experience, and evaluation results develop.
- Current — a future stable reference that has passed its stated release criteria. AFP does not currently claim this status.
- Superseded — a previously current or working document replaced by a newer reference but retained for traceability.
- Historical — retained for provenance or context and not normative for the current AFP specification.
Status is about a document’s role, not evidence of correctness, standardization, adoption, or empirical superiority.
Version history
| Version | Date | Status | Material change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | 2026-09-12 | Working | First explicitly versioned public working specification. Formalizes the six-step workflow, SafeLoop, reliability questions, scope boundary, and separation between the current specification and the historical 2025 concept whitepaper. |
| 2025 concept edition | 2025-09-09 | Historical | Earlier whitepaper framing retained as historical context. It is not the current AFP specification and is not evidence of empirical superiority. |
Versioning rule
A new specification version is warranted when a change materially alters at least one of the following:
- a required AFP workflow step or its meaning;
- a reliability or conformance requirement;
- the scope boundary;
- an evaluation rule that changes how AFP claims are interpreted;
- a document status that changes which reference is normative.
Pure copy edits, typo fixes, link repairs, accessibility fixes, and visual changes do not by themselves require a specification version change unless they alter meaning.
Evidence rule
A specification version records what AFP requires. Evaluation evidence records whether those requirements improve measured outcomes. The existence of a newer specification version must never be presented as evidence that AFP performs better.
For empirical status, use Evaluations. For the current normative working reference, use AFP Specification.