Google’s Open Knowledge Format Adds Five Trust Signals

Google has introduced an replace to the Open Information Format (OKF), model 0.2. The brand new model provides 5 belief associated options {that a} “client” of the OKF can use to confirm 5 elements concerning the OKF bundles.

The 5 belief indicators and their associated OKF fields and idea sort are:

1. Provenance (subject: sources)
2. Belief (fields: generated, verified)
3. Freshness (subject: stale_after)
4. Lifecyle: (subject: standing)
5. Attestation (new idea sort: Attested Computation)

The announcement positions these 5 indicators as answering 5 questions concerning the OKF bundle with the intention to set up belief.

The 5 questions:

1. “What was this created from? (provenance)
2. How a lot ought to I belief it? (belief)
3. Is it nonetheless true? (freshness)
4. Is it the present model? (lifecycle)
5. Was this quantity produced the best way we stated it have to be? (attestation)”

Provenance

Google introduces a brand new “sources” subject that information the place the knowledge in an idea got here from. This allows shoppers to establish the unique sources used to create it. This gives supply info that buyers can use to judge an idea’s trustworthiness, answering t he query, “What was this created from?”.

That is Google’s instance of the sources subject:

sources:
- id: warehouse-schema
useful resource: https://wiki.acme.inside/information/warehouse/schemas/gross sales
title: Acme Retail warehouse schema — gross sales dataset
creator: group:data-platform
usage_count: 1240
last_modified: 2026-06-15
- id: revenue-policy
useful resource: insurance policies/revenue-recognition.md
title: Income Recognition Coverage (FY2026)
creator: human:jsmith@acme
last_modified: 2026-06-15

Google explains what all of it means:

“The brand new sources subject information the supplies an idea derives from: an exterior doc, a bundle-relative path, or perhaps a scope descriptor like “all queries in challenge X.” On the identical time, an entry can carry goal credibility indicators: creator, usage_count, last_modified.

The deliberate selection here’s what we didn’t add. OKF information the indicators, not a credibility rating. A rating is subjective, doesn’t port throughout shoppers, and goes stale the second it’s written.

As an alternative, credibility is inferred from the indicators by whoever is consuming (and might be dynamically scored by the patron, if desired), the identical approach you’d belief a closely used, just lately up to date, authoritatively authored supply greater than an nameless one. And when the physique cites a selected supply, it does so with an strange markdown footnote keyed to the supply id ([^export-schema]), so attribution is per-claim as an alternative of a dangling checklist on the backside.”

Belief: Generated And Verified Fields

The subsequent a part of the belief indicators are the Generated and Verified fields.

The “generated” subject information who created an idea, whereas the “verified” subject information who independently confirmed it. A client (akin to an AI agent, an LLM, or an software) can use the verification info to filter ideas primarily based on whether or not they’re unverified, machine-confirmed, or human-reviewed.

That is the instance of the Generated and Verified fields in use:

sort: Metric
title: Income
generated: { by: reference_agent/gemini-2.5-pro, at: 2026-06-30T14:00:00Z }
verified:
- { by: human:jsmith@acme, at: 2026-07-01T09:00:00Z }

Freshness and Lifecycle: standing and stale_after Fields

The standing subject communicates what a part of the lifecycle an idea is in so {that a} client can establish whether or not it’s in draft, present, or it’s outdated (deprecated). It indicators whether or not an idea is a draft, secure, or is deprecated.

The stale_after subject specifies the date after which the idea must be re-verified earlier than getting used. Shoppers can use these fields to establish ideas that must be re-verified or to exclude outdated ideas from new work whereas preserving them for historic reference.

Right here’s the instance of this in use:

sort: Metric
title: Gross Margin (legacy, pre-FY2026)
standing: deprecated

Attested Computation: For Verifying Calculations

Attested Computation isn’t a subject, it’s a brand new Sort. Attested Computation defines the authorised strategy to calculate a worth and gives a strategy to confirm that the calculation was carried out the best way it was imagined to be calculated.

The official description explains:

“Provenance solutions the place a declare got here from. Attestation solutions a tougher query that issues the second an agent stories a greenback determine: was this quantity produced the best way we stated it have to be, or did the agent improvise its personal SQL?

OKF v0.2 introduces a brand new idea sort, Attested Computation. It carries not simply what a worth means however a sanctioned strategy to compute it, and the means to test that the sanctioned factor truly ran.”

Right here’s the instance:

---
sort: Attested Computation
title: Income for a fiscal 12 months
runtime: bigquery
parameters:
- { identify: 12 months, sort: integer, required: true }
executor:
useful resource: expertise/run-on-bq.md
receipt: [job_id, executed_sql, result]
attester:
useful resource: attesters/sql_equality.py
generated: { by: reference_agent/gemini-2.5-pro, at: 2026-06-30T14:00:00Z }
verified:
- { by: human:jsmith@acme, at: 2026-07-01T09:00:00Z }
standing: secure
stale_after: 2026-12-31
sources:
- id: revenue-policy
useful resource: insurance policies/revenue-recognition.md
title: Income Recognition Coverage (FY2026)
creator: human:jsmith@acme
last_modified: 2026-06-15
---

# Computation

SELECT
SUM(
CASE
WHEN o.foreign money = 'USD' THEN o.net_amount
ELSE o.net_amount * fx.rate_to_usd
END
) AS revenue_usd
FROM `acme.gross sales.orders` AS o
LEFT JOIN `acme.finance.fx_daily_rates` AS fx
ON fx.foreign money = o.foreign money
AND fx.rate_date = DATE(o.order_ts)
WHERE o.order_status="delivered"
AND DATE_DIFF(CURRENT_DATE(), DATE(o.order_ts), DAY) >= 30
AND EXTRACT(YEAR FROM o.order_ts) = @12 months"

Up to date Open Information Format Documentation

Google has up to date the GitHub Repository to mirror this replace and has revealed an announcement that serves as an explainer.

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