The Standards Nobody Standardized

Some of the most widely implemented API contracts in the world were never ratified by anybody. S3, the OpenAI API, CKAN's Action API, Ethereum JSON-RPC — each became a standard by being copied, not by being agreed.

These are not base APIs, which describe how an API should be designed. They are descriptions of what the industry already implements, profiled from the interface as it actually behaves, graded into conformance tiers, and published with a registry of who implements them and how strongly each claim is evidenced. We describe; we do not design. A claim is recorded as a claim until something verifies it.

The OpenAI Interface - The inference contract every model host, router and local runtime speaks. OpenAI published an API; the industry turned it into a wire format, and a chat completion request written for one provider now runs against hundreds. This profiles that interface as it is actually implemented, grades it into tiers, and records who implements what.
175 implementations recorded · Published — 338 operations graded, 175 adopters recorded

Adoption counts are a floor, not a census. They count organizations who state compatibility in sources we have harvested, and nowhere else. Every adopter entry carries the URL it was read from and the date it was read.