# Open Brand Definition Project: Open Brand Definition Specification: OBDS Current release: 3.0.4 (stable, 4 September 2026) Publisher: Kill The Dragon GmbH, Vienna, Austria Canonical address: https://openbranddefinition.org/ ## Purpose An open, implementation-ready specification for governed brand truth and AI creation. OBDS is a governed brand control layer for AI systems. It is a standard for brand specifically, not a general policy, compliance or enterprise-governance framework. OBDS determines which brand truth applies in a declared context, compiles the exact context for one task, declares the permissible design space a renderer may create inside, and records why a result was released, blocked or routed to approval. It is not a brandbook format, a prompt library or a template system. ## Minimum OBDS Foundation. Nothing above it is required. Foundation, section 26.1, covers Brand Elements, the four Brand States, Rules, Scope, Semantic Boundaries, provenance and Value Contracts. It governs Brand Truth and answers what is true and what the brand has explicitly declared it does not know. The fail-closed build gate is Compiled Runtime, section 26.2, not Foundation. Build Plans, requiresDefined, the rule that a failed target produces no Compiled Brand Context, reproducible artefact hashes and Runtime Decision Records all belong there. The guarantee is mechanically tested; it is simply not part of the mandatory minimum. ## Optional capabilities Added only when the task requires them. Registered Runtime Capability identifiers in 1.0: compiled-runtime context-delivery context-assembly text visual-operations composition claims localisation operations Optional Brand Profile identifiers in 1.0: obds-governed-records obds-release-approval obds-claims-evidence obds-assets-rights obds-localisation obds-assurance-lineage obds-composition obds-visual-operations Every manifest declares obds-foundation. Section 4.2 of the specification describes the minimal implementation path. ## Core principles Facts establish truth. Rules establish obligations. Semantic Boundaries establish qualitative guidance, not compliance. Unknown remains unknown, and is never filled in by inference. Scope determines what applies. asOf determines when. OBDS defines the permissible design space. Renderers create inside it. The four Brand States are: defined, unknown, not_defined, not_applicable. Prohibition is not a state. It is an explicit Rule with obligation: prohibit. The assembled model input is rendered in this fixed order: HARD_BOUNDARIES, FACT_GROUNDING, STATE_MAP, GUIDANCE_CONTEXT, TASK_INPUT. ## Authoritative specification https://openbranddefinition.org/spec/3.0.4/OBDS-3.0.4.md ## Authoring and curation https://openbranddefinition.org/authoring/ (English only) OBDS does not write brand truth and does not check it against the world. A named human role approves it. OBDS begins at the approved Brand Manifest and ends at a Compiled Brand Context and a decision record. It cannot detect an approved statement that is false, and it cannot detect a build target that under-declares what it requires: both build successfully with valid hashes. ## Schemas Schema index: https://openbranddefinition.org/spec/3.0.4/OBDS-3.0.4-SCHEMA-INDEX.json Publication map: https://openbranddefinition.org/spec/3.0.4/OBDS-3.0.4-PUBLICATION-MAP.json Schema base: https://openbranddefinition.org/schemas/1.0.0/ Value schema base: https://openbranddefinition.org/value-schemas/1.0.0/ ## Downloads Complete package: https://openbranddefinition.org/spec/3.0.4/OBDS-3.0.4-FINAL.zip Quickstart: https://openbranddefinition.org/spec/3.0.4/OBDS-3.0.4-IMPLEMENTER-QUICKSTART.md Changelog: https://openbranddefinition.org/spec/3.0.4/OBDS-3.0.4-CHANGELOG.md Publication record: https://openbranddefinition.org/publication-record.json Source repository: https://github.com/openbranddefinition/obds ## Licensing Two standard licences, neither text modified. Specification and documentation CC BY 4.0 Implementation layer Apache License 2.0 Commercial implementation Permitted, no separate permission required Official marks Separately governed The implementation layer is the schemas, the release metadata, the reference implementation, the conformance suite and the machine-readable examples. Licence mapping: https://openbranddefinition.org/LICENSE.md CC BY 4.0 text: https://openbranddefinition.org/LICENSES/CC-BY-4.0.txt Apache 2.0 text: https://openbranddefinition.org/LICENSES/Apache-2.0.txt Trademarks: https://openbranddefinition.org/TRADEMARKS.md Governance: https://openbranddefinition.org/GOVERNANCE.md Contributing: https://openbranddefinition.org/CONTRIBUTING.md Neither licence grants trademark rights. Truthful compatibility statements such as "implements OBDS 1.0" require no permission. No trademark registration is claimed and no certification programme is live. Independent implementation of the underlying ideas, principles, methods and formats is not restricted. ## Examples The smallest manifest, and a fail-closed example in which required truth is unresolved, no compiled context is produced and no model is called. Both carry a Foundation manifest and exercise Compiled Runtime: the build plan, requiresDefined and the withheld artefact are section 26.2, not Foundation: https://openbranddefinition.org/examples/README.md ## Previous releases Published as released, not modified, historical. OBDS 1.1.4 https://openbranddefinition.org/spec/1.1.4/OBDS-1.1.4.md OBDS 1.1.3 https://openbranddefinition.org/spec/1.1.3/OBDS-1.1.3.md OBDS 1.1.2 https://openbranddefinition.org/spec/1.1.2/OBDS-1.1.2.md OBDS 1.1.1 https://openbranddefinition.org/spec/1.1.1/OBDS-1.1.1.md OBDS 1.1.0 https://openbranddefinition.org/spec/1.1.0/OBDS-1.1.0.md OBDS 1.0.4 https://openbranddefinition.org/spec/1.0.4/OBDS-1.0.4.md OBDS 1.0.3 https://openbranddefinition.org/spec/1.0.3/OBDS-1.0.3.md OBDS 1.0.2 https://openbranddefinition.org/spec/1.0.2/OBDS-1.0.2.md OBDS 1.0.1 https://openbranddefinition.org/spec/1.0.1/OBDS-1.0.1.md OBDS 1.0.0 https://openbranddefinition.org/spec/1.0.0/OBDS-1.0.0.md Section 32 of the 1.0.0 document and section 32.1 of the 1.0.1 document carry the licensing wording that was current at the time. Section 32.1 of 3.0.4 is the operative one, unchanged from 1.0.2. OBDS 1.1 is the independent-implementability release. It adds governedResultHash, the value two implementations must agree on for the same manifest and build plan, and leaves artifactHash and its meaning untouched. Precedence, the scope vocabulary, the tokenizer, the validator registry and the build failure codes are now defined rather than inferred. The OBDS 1.0.0 contract surface remains frozen and byte-identical across 1.0.0, 1.0.1, 1.0.2, 1.0.3, 1.0.4, 1.1.0, 1.1.1, 1.1.2, 1.1.3, 1.1.4, 1.1.5, 1.1.6, 2.0.0, 3.0.0, 3.0.1, 3.0.2, 3.0.3 and 3.0.4. OBDS 1.1 added one versioned contract beside it and OBDS 3.0 adds four more, changing none of the frozen surface. That contract is schemas/1.1.0/compiled-context.schema.json. Manifests stay at schemaVersion 1.0.0; compiled contexts move to 1.1.0. ## Note This file is navigation and orientation only. It is not a source of Brand Truth and it is not normative. The published specification and the published contracts remain authoritative.