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DocSiren Glossary

Definitions for terms used in the DASF specification and across document deadline, expiration, and compliance alert systems. Each entry includes the canonical definition and, where applicable, a link to the underlying source standard or regulation.

A

AlertEvent DASF §3.1
The root object of a DASF payload. Represents a single notifiable event about a single document subject, carrying severity, timestamps, the subject reference, channels, and optional escalation policy. See spec §3.1.
Acknowledgement DASF §3.6
A terminal recipient response indicating disposition of an alert. DASF defines three terminal statuses (acknowledged, completed, dismissed) and one non-terminal status (snoozed) which requires a x_snooze_until timestamp.
AcknowledgementReceipt DASF §3.6
A DASF payload returned by recipients (or their agents) to close an alert loop. Receipts reference the original AlertEvent.id via the x_ack_for extension field.

B

Backoff Algorithm
A formula for computing the delay between successive delivery attempts. DASF supports four values: fixed (constant delay), linear (delay grows by a constant), exponential (delay doubles), and exponential_jitter (exponential with random jitter to avoid thundering herd).
BCP 47 Locale
An IETF Best Current Practice tag identifying a locale (e.g. en-US, ru-RU, uk-UA). Used in DASF locale fields. See BCP 47.
BPMN
Business Process Model and Notation, an OMG standard for workflow modeling. DASF is not a BPMN replacement — DASF carries a single alert event, while BPMN models the surrounding process.

C

CDL (Commercial Driver License)
A US license required to operate commercial motor vehicles above defined weight thresholds. Renewals, medical card updates, and endorsement actions are typical DASF subjects of type DriverLicense.
Consumer DASF §2.2
A system that ingests DASF payloads and routes, displays, or acts on them. Consumers MUST accept any schema-valid payload and MUST ignore unknown extension fields.
Critical (severity)
The highest DASF severity level. Indicates that the deadline is imminent or has been crossed, and non-action triggers regulatory or contractual breach. Quiet hours MUST NOT apply to critical alerts.

D

DASF
Document Alert Specification Format. The open reference object model and JSON serialization for document-attached alerts, defined in the DocSiren DASF v1.0 specification.
Deadline
The instant by which an obligation attached to a DocumentSubject must be discharged. Encoded as the deadline_at field on AlertEvent in RFC 3339 UTC.
DocumentSubject DASF §3.2
The DASF object identifying the document an alert is about: its type, identifier, jurisdiction, obligation, and optional human label and external references.

E

EscalationRule DASF §3.4
An ordered DASF policy entry describing how to react when an alert is not acknowledged within a given window. Actions: resend, escalate (route to alternate recipient), elevate_severity, cancel.
Extension Field DASF §5.4
A field whose key begins with x_. Producers may add extension fields anywhere in the payload; consumers MUST NOT reject a payload solely because it contains unknown extension fields.

F

FERPA
The US Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (20 U.S.C. § 1232g), governing student record disclosures. Relevant to DASF when DocumentSubject identifies an educational record under FERPA's scope.
FMCSA
The US Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Issuer of MC Authority, USDOT numbers, and the operator of the UCR program; canonical source of recurring deadlines for transportation-sector DASF producers.

G

GDPR Right to Erasure
EU General Data Protection Regulation Article 17, requiring controllers to delete personal data on request within statutory timelines. DASF producers and consumers MUST be able to expunge by subject.identifier; see spec §12.5.
GovDelivery
A government-focused notification platform widely used by US federal and state agencies. Cited as a representative consumer-style platform that benefits from standardized alert formats.
Grace Period
A jurisdiction-defined window following a deadline during which the obligation may still be discharged without penalty. DASF encodes grace periods as additional EscalationRules with elevated severity past deadline_at.

H

HIPAA Breach Notification
The 45 CFR §§164.400–414 rule requiring covered entities to notify affected individuals of unsecured PHI breaches within 60 days of discovery. A canonical critical-severity DASF use case; see examples.
HMAC Signature
A keyed hash sent in the X-DASF-Signature header for webhook channels with signed = true, allowing consumers to verify body integrity and producer authenticity. DASF mandates HMAC-SHA256.

I

IANA Time Zone
A named time zone identifier from the IANA Time Zone Database (e.g. America/New_York, Europe/Moscow). Used in DASF quiet_hours fields.
Idempotency Key
A deterministic identifier (idempotency_key) attached to a DASF payload that allows consumers to deduplicate repeated transmissions of the same logical alert. SHOULD be derived deterministically from subject and deadline.
Info (severity)
The lowest DASF severity level. Indicates an informational notice with no action required by the recipient; e.g. confirmation that a renewal was processed.
ISO 8601 Duration
The duration encoding used in DASF EscalationRule.after and RetryPolicy delay fields. Common values: PT30S, PT5M, PT1H, P1D, P7D, P30D.

J

JSON Canonicalization Scheme (JCS)
RFC 8785. The canonical JSON form recommended by DASF for deterministic hashing when deriving idempotency_key values; consumers MUST NOT require canonical form for delivery acceptance.
Jurisdiction
The issuing or governing authority for a DocumentSubject, expressed as an ISO 3166-2 code (e.g. US-NY, US-CA, RU).

M

MC Authority
FMCSA-issued operating authority required for for-hire interstate motor carriers. Renewals, reinstatements, and BOC-3 process-agent obligations are common DASF subjects of type USDOTAuthority.

N

NotificationChannel DASF §3.3
A DASF channel descriptor identifying where an alert is to be delivered. DASF v1.0 defines six channel types: email, sms, push, webhook, voice, postal.

O

OAuth Webhook
A webhook channel where the producer authenticates outbound delivery using an OAuth 2.0 bearer token. Orthogonal to DASF body signing (HMAC) but commonly combined: OAuth authenticates the call, HMAC verifies the body.
Obligation
The action required of a recipient with respect to a DocumentSubject. DASF recommended values: renewal, filing, payment, review, upload, signature, notification, response.

P

Producer DASF §2.1
A system that emits DASF payloads. Producers MUST validate against the published JSON Schema, MUST set dasf_version correctly, and MUST namespace any non-standard fields with the x_ extension prefix.

Q

Quiet Hours
A daily time window per channel during which non-critical DASF alerts MUST NOT be delivered. Expressed as HH:MM-HH:MM in a named IANA time zone, e.g. 22:00-07:00 America/New_York. Critical-severity alerts override quiet hours.

R

Reminder Cascade
A series of DASF EscalationRules that fire at successively shorter intervals before a deadline (e.g. T-60, T-30, T-14, T-7, T-1 days). The standard pattern for high-stakes recurring obligations such as UCR or workers comp audit.
RetryPolicy DASF §3.5
A channel-level DASF policy describing delivery retry behavior: max_attempts, backoff, initial_delay, max_delay. Distinct from escalation, which addresses recipient inaction rather than transport failure.
RFC 3339
The Internet date-time format used for all DASF timestamps. DASF mandates UTC with explicit Z suffix and prohibits offset notation such as +00:00.
RFC 5545 (iCalendar)
The Internet Calendaring and Scheduling Core Object Specification. DASF references RFC 5545 conceptually but does not extend it: iCalendar covers general scheduling, DASF covers document-attached alerts specifically.

S

Severity DASF §6
One of four DASF urgency levels: info, warning, urgent, critical. Governs escalation behavior, channel selection, and quiet-hours overrides.
Snooze Window
A user-elected deferral period during which an alert is suppressed from delivery. Encoded in DASF as an AcknowledgementReceipt with status snoozed and an x_snooze_until timestamp.
SR-22 Filing
A US state-level certificate of financial responsibility filed by an insurer on behalf of a high-risk driver. Filing or cancellation deadlines commonly produce urgent DASF alerts; see examples.

T

TTL (Time To Live)
A duration after which a queued or cached alert is considered stale and MUST NOT be delivered. DASF v1.0 expresses TTL via x_ttl extension fields; a future revision may promote TTL to a normative field.

U

UCR Registration
The Unified Carrier Registration program requiring interstate motor carriers to register and pay annual fees. A canonical recurring DASF subject for transportation compliance; see examples.
ULID
A 128-bit lexicographically-sortable identifier format. Recommended (alongside UUIDv7) for AlertEvent.id values to support time-ordered indexing and deduplication.
Urgent (severity)
A DASF severity level indicating that action is required soon and that missing the deadline has material consequences. Sits between warning and critical.
USDOT Number
A unique identifier assigned by the US Department of Transportation to motor carriers. Frequently the primary subject.identifier for DASF alerts about carrier compliance documents.

W

Warning (severity)
A DASF severity level indicating that action will be required but the deadline is not imminent. Typical for renewal alerts issued 60–90 days before expiration.
Workers Comp Audit
An annual or periodic insurer audit of a policyholder's payroll and class codes for workers compensation premium adjustment. A recurring DASF cascade subject; see examples.