§6 Versioning & status
The placeholder-anatomy statement — the .dat0 format is a nominal v1 draft, designed not shipped, and what will change when the real format lands.
In development. This format is designed, not shipped. Nothing to install yet — join the waitlist.
Everything in this spec is nominal. The anatomy in §1–§5 — the header layout, the five chunks, their offsets, the seal — is a designed placeholder: designed, not shipped. It exists so the site can tell a coherent format story while the real format is being built, and it is labeled as concept content wherever it renders.
What "draft" means here
The version field in the file header reads 1, and the sidebar calls this document a draft — both are design statements, not release claims. There is no shipped reader or writer of this format today. The v1 draft says what the format is FOR: five self-framing chunks that carry a workflow's data, transforms, queries, session, and lineage under one seal.
What will change
When the real format lands, this page is where the differences land first:
- The anatomy. Offsets, encodings, and field layouts may move as the real design settles. Nothing here is a compatibility promise.
- The content source. Every format fact on this site — landing page,
docs, social cards — flows from one module,
lib/dat0-format.ts. The real format replaces that module's contents; both surfaces follow in the same change, so they cannot drift apart. - The flag comes down. The "designed, not shipped" callout on every page retires when there is something real to point at.
Until then, read this as the spec of an intent, written in the language of the artifact it describes.
Back to §0 Introduction — or start the file from the top at §1 Chunk 00 — DATA.