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DCAT Interagency Maintenance Team

David Aguiar edited this page Aug 31, 2026 · 3 revisions

DCAT Interagency Maintenance Team

Draft for discussion and revision by the DCAT Interagency Maintenance Team and the Data.gov team.

The DCAT Interagency Maintenance Team supports ongoing maintenance of the DCAT-US v3.0 metadata standard. The maintenance process provides a structured way to review proposed changes, clarify implementation questions, maintain documentation, coordinate release cycles, and communicate updates to agencies.

DCAT-US v3.0 follows a semi-annual maintenance cycle covering:

  • Schema governance
  • Issue triage
  • Documentation updates
  • Release planning
  • Agency communication
  • Implementation support
  • Annual retrospective review

The DCAT Interagency Maintenance Team governs schema maintenance decisions. The Data.gov team at GSA maintains the DCAT-US repository and coordinates the maintenance cycle. Major version changes, such as DCAT-US v4.0, are planned separately.


Maintenance Pages

Page Purpose
Maintenance Process Overview Summary of the DCAT-US v3.0 maintenance model
Roles and Responsibilities Describes the roles of the DCAT Interagency Maintenance Team, Data.gov team, participating agencies, and related contributors
Issue Triage and GitHub Workflow Explains how issues are submitted, labeled, triaged, routed, and assigned to milestones
Semi-Annual Release Cycles Describes the Cycle 1 spring release and Cycle 2 summer release process
Agency Feedback and Participation Describes which agencies may be invited to participate and what commitment is expected
Release Communications and Outreach Describes release notes, agency outreach, grace periods, and communication channels
Annual Retrospective Describes the annual retrospective, validation trend review, and implementation support summary
Maintenance Meeting Schedule Describes the recurring and cycle-based meetings used to operate the maintenance process
Maintenance Templates Provides reusable templates for triage, release readiness, outreach, and retrospective documentation

Maintenance Cycle Summary

DCAT-US v3.0 uses continuous issue triage and two semi-annual release cycles.

Activity Timing
Continuous issue triage Rolling basis throughout the year
Cycle 1 spring release March/April
Cycle 2 summer release July
Annual retrospective July, aligned with Cycle 2

Issue Submission

Requests or issues related to the DCAT-US metadata standard should be submitted through the DCAT-US GitHub Issues page:

https://github.com/GSA/dcat-us/issues

Issues are triaged on a rolling basis. The Data.gov team applies a classification label to each new issue within two weeks of submission:

  • bug
  • enhancement
  • question

Related Resources


Contact

Questions about the governance process or Data.gov coordination can be directed to:

datagovhelp@gsa.gov

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