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Versioning and Status

A specification is not fixed once written. Fields are added, constraints tightened, wording corrected. The CEDAR model tracks this change so that a specification can evolve while the metadata already built against an earlier version stays anchored to it.

Two things record where an artifact stands. Its status marks its place in a lifecycle: a working draft, or a published version in use. Its version is a released identity, a major.minor.patch number, and links carry the version it succeeded and the artifact it was derived from.

type: template
name: Study
status: published
version: 2.0.0
previousVersion: https://repo.metadatacenter.org/templates/7b8977e

Keys

Key Value Presence Meaning
status draft or published optional The artifact's lifecycle state.
version string optional The artifact version, as major.minor.patch (for example 1.0.0).
previousVersion IRI optional The prior version of this artifact.
derivedFrom IRI optional The artifact this one was derived from.
modelVersion string optional The version of the CEDAR model the artifact conforms to (currently 1.6.0).

version, previousVersion, and derivedFrom describe the artifact's own history. modelVersion is different. It names the version of the model the artifact is written against, not a version of the artifact.