The SoW Standard, published as data

The SoW Standard is published as machine-readable data: the canonical element register, a JSON Schema for a complete SoW instance, worked examples, and a prompt library for reviewing and drafting against the standard. Everything is public on GitHub under Apache 2.0, and served directly from this site. No account is needed for any of it.

What the format gives you

Every element of the standard is a typed object with a stable id: 5.6 means Acceptance Criteria in the Word templates, in the schema, and in every prompt. The commercial spine is structured data that computes: pricing and rate tables, monetary amounts as money objects with an ISO 4217 currency, deliverables with due dates and scope references, key dates, notice periods, and registered identifiers for both parties.

Engagement types do real work in the format. A Full profile Time and Materials SoW must carry its rate card, its maximum days, and its payment schedule; a Full profile Fixed Price SoW must carry its payment schedule. The rules are part of the schema, so a document missing them fails validation rather than passing quietly.

Check any document yourself

The repository ships a free checker that validates any SoW instance offline:

pip install jsonschema
python3 tools/validate.py your.sow.json

It runs the schema validation plus the checks a schema cannot express: quantity times unit price equals total, tables reconcile to the pricing summary, discounts reconcile to the net value, and engagement expectations are met. The same checker runs in the repository's CI on every example, and a scheduled job verifies the schema served here matches the repository byte for byte.

Ownership

The SoW Standard and its trademarks are owned by World Commerce and Contracting. The design intent behind the format, including how a SoW inherits heavy legal terms from the master agreement above it, is documented in the repository's design intent note.