One published OCDS state.
A notice may produce several releases as it is created, amended, awarded or updated.
DATA METHOD · VERSION 1.0.0
A number is not ready
because it exists.
It becomes publishable only after the source window closes, the collector proves what it covered, missing fields remain visible and every public form resolves from one canonical object.
THE RELEASE TRANSACTION
Eight gates. One immutable result.
- 01
Close the period
The daily period is 00:00 inclusive to 00:00 exclusive in Europe/London. DST changes follow the named timezone rather than assuming every day has 24 UTC hours.
- 02
Cover the complete window
Find a Tender and Contracts Finder request windows must begin before the period and end after it.
- 03
Exhaust pagination
Every next cursor must be consumed. Repeated cursors and a live cursor at the page limit make the source run fail closed.
- 04
Preserve release identity
OCDS releases remain countable as releases. Notice measures group by OCID where supplied; otherwise the immutable release identity remains.
- 05
Calculate once
One canonical release object creates HTML, JSON, CSV, SVG, feed entries, API responses and widget values. Frontends do not recalculate.
- 06
Keep missing values missing
A missing buyer, deadline, CPV or structured GBP amount is measured as field coverage. It is never replaced with zero or inferred from prose.
- 07
Hash every artifact
SHA-256 digests, byte counts and the release identity enter a public manifest before the mutable latest pointer changes.
- 08
Freeze or retain
A passing bundle becomes immutable. A failed run keeps the last valid release online and records the private reason for the next scheduled retry.
DEFINITIONS · THE DIFFERENCES MATTER
Release, notice and lifecycle are not synonyms.
One OCID—or the retained source identity.
Notice measures avoid counting the same lifecycle repeatedly while preserving unlinked records rather than discarding them.
Planning or tender appears.
It does not assert that the opportunity is still open at the time a visitor downloads the release.
An award stage appears.
The same identity can be both opportunity-bearing and award-bearing; lifecycle counts can overlap.
Tender and award values remain separate.
Only positive amounts explicitly labelled GBP enter either measure. Each amount is normalised to pence with decimal half-up arithmetic, and sector partitions must reconcile to the headline. No foreign-exchange conversion, prose extraction or missing-value replacement is performed.
The first two structured CPV digits.
A disclosed lookup maps CPV divisions into broad analytical sectors. Missing or unmapped codes remain unclassified.
COVERAGE
Two official services—not the whole market.
The first series uses Find a Tender and Contracts Finder. Their scope and schemas differ. Public Contracts Scotland, Sell2Wales, private portals and unadvertised routes are not silently merged into this release.
Find a Tender developer documentation ↗
Contracts Finder API documentation ↗
CLASSIFICATION
Explicit CPV—or unclassified.
The first retained structured CPV code supplies a two-digit CPV division, which maps to one disclosed analytical sector. Title and description keywords never force a record into a sector, and the source CPV remains authoritative.
EQUAL PERIODS
No day competes with a month.
Immutable releases expose one closed period. Future weekly and monthly editions will compare only like-for-like complete periods with stable source coverage; they will not inherit the live Market room’s visual reading formula.
LICENSING AND PRIVACY
Open data is not an instruction to expose people.
- Attribution
- Every bundle states: Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Exclusions
- Personal data, logos, crests, third-party rights and material the provider cannot license do not become reusable merely because a notice is public.
- Public field whitelist
- Aggregates, broad classifications, source identifiers, official source links and calculated coverage may be public. Contact names, emails and phone numbers are not exported.
- No endorsement
- Reuse does not imply endorsement by a source authority, buyer or information provider.
CORRECTIONS · NAME, NEVER ERASE
The cited state does not change underneath its reader.
A discovered material defect is entered in the machine-readable register with its reason, affected release and date. The immutable artifact and digest remain inspectable; current pointers are changed only through a controlled release. The series does not claim a replacement until that replacement exists.
Open the machine-readable corrections register →SCHEDULE AND RECOVERY
No new daemon was required.
The existing Observatory runs at 09:15, 13:15, 17:15 and 21:15 Europe/London. The first release attempt begins after 13:00 for the preceding closed day. The existing shared release lock, build validation, deployment rollback and health timer protect publication.
Weekly and monthly bundles remain deliberately absent until the daily series contains complete constituent periods. An empty calendar is better than an invented history.
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