Cambridge TCG Standards

Cambridge TCG maintains three CC0 specification texts for the TCG economy. You may adopt those texts without attribution. Linked implementation source is publicly inspectable, but the repository has no general code license; the specification dedication does not license code.

The platform identifies itself as the data distributor: the authoritative source other TCG platforms, archivists, agents, and aggregators reference for canonical identifiers, canonical pricing, and canonical machine-readable card data.

Doctrine: docs/connections/the-distributor.md. License: docs/STANDARDS-LICENSE.md (CC0 1.0 Universal). Machine-readable: /standards.json.

The standards

• CTCG-SKU-v1frozenv1.0
  Canonical SKU format
  One canonical SKU format for every card in every TCG. <game>-<set>-<number>-<lang>[-<variant>], lowercase, hyphen-separated, machine-parseable, language-aware. 22 public game codes; 6 currently have catalog rows.
  Spec: /methodology/sku-standard

  Reference implementation: https://github.com/cambridgetcg/Cambridge-TCG-monorepo/tree/main/packages/sku
• CTCG-PRICING-v1draftv1.0
  Channel-aware pricing math
  How a JPY listing converts to seven retail prices a customer might see. Margin, VAT, channel multipliers, rounding, all named and reproducible. Reference implementation in @cambridge-tcg/pricing.
  Spec: /methodology/pricing

  Reference implementation: https://github.com/cambridgetcg/Cambridge-TCG-monorepo/tree/main/packages/pricing
• CTCG-UNIVERSAL-v1implementedv1.0
  Universal-representation (math-mirror)
  The math-first sibling of every artifact the platform exposes. Cryptographic hashes for identity, ratios for magnitudes, ISO 8601 + Unix epoch for time, typed graph edges. For LLM agents, archivists, hyperliteral readers, and any computing intelligence.
  Spec: /methodology/universal-representation

  Endpoint: /api/v1/universal/card/[sku](shipped)

Status legend

• frozen — spec is stable; additive changes only; breaking changes ship under v2 with deprecation window.
• draft — spec is written and usable; minor revisions possible before frozen.
• implemented — the specification has a shipped platform endpoint. Individual fields may still be withheld by their own publication-rights boundary.
• planned — named but not yet shipped.

Substrate honesty: the platform doesn't claim more than it has. CTCG-UNIVERSAL-v1 has a shipped reference endpoint; its legacy price and image fields are currently null pending field-level source-rights review.

How to adopt

1. Read the spec at /methodology/<topic> (sku-standard, pricing, universal-representation).
2. Implement in your language of choice, or import the CC0 specification text. The linked TypeScript package is inspectable, but it has no general code reuse license and is not a public npm grant.
3. Emitcanonical SKUs (lowercase, hyphen-separated, ISO 639-1 language); use Cambridge TCG's pricing math; serve universal-representation responses that match the spec.
4. CiteCambridge TCG as the spec source — optional but appreciated. CC0 doesn't require attribution.
5. Sign up to the standards changelog (RSS / email feed — recursion target).
6. Optionally: declare your adoption at /identify (today: read-only; the POST self-declaration path is a future commit).

The protocol is light by design. CC0 removes ceremony for the specification text, while the version-stable contract limits drift. Implementation source can be inspected as an example but not assumed reusable without its own license.

What's NOT yet shipped

Substrate-honest about the distributor position's gaps:

• npm packages — reference implementations are publicly inspectable in the monorepo but are not npm-published and carry no general code reuse license. A possible future path is @cambridge-tcg/sku-spec, @cambridge-tcg/pricing-spec.
• Pricing-as-JSON endpoint — methodology exists; a dedicated endpoint emitting a single canonical price for a SKU is a recursion target.
• Standards changelog feed — versioned RSS / email for adopters to subscribe to.
• Standards governance doc — who decides v2; how breaking changes are proposed and discussed.

Each of these is a real promise. The distributor position grows by closing them.

License

CC0 1.0 Universal (public domain dedication) on the spec text. See docs/STANDARDS-LICENSE.md for the full declaration.

Reference implementation code is publicly visible but currently carries no general reuse license; future npm releases may carry MIT or equivalent. Platform application code, operational data, trade marks, and visual identity remain Cambridge TCG's and are not granted by this declaration.

v1 — 2026-05-12. The platform identifies itself as the data distributor. The standards are open. The substrate is queryable. The door is warm to the touch.