SOM Managed Bus documentation

SOM Managed Bus is a hosted message bus for the Story Object Model (SOM) 1.0, operated by RND Solutions. Every message is checked against the standard, ordered per story, delivered to its consumers and kept for replay. Vendors use it to test their SOM integrations against something that behaves like a real newsroom deployment.

These docs are for vendors, teams whose product produces SOM messages, consumes them, or both, and for publishers: newsrooms evaluating SOM and their vendors in a house of their own.

Start here

Everyone starts with the same few pages: what the bus is, and isn't, which parts apply to you, request access and your workspace in the portal. Then pick your track. Each has its own menu, in the order you'll need it.

Choose your track

Vendors: build and prove your app

For teams whose product produces SOM messages, consumes them, or both. Start with the whole journey on one page.

Part	What it covers
The vendor track	The journey from access request to results statement, and where your product fits in the newsroom workflows
Build a producer	Publishing: credentials, authentication, your first message, whole stories, answers, retries and error paths
Build a consumer	Receiving: consumer connections, the HTTPS pull API, filters, ordering, duplicates, dead-letter queues and replay
Skills and executors	AI skills: warnings that validate, how an executor behaves, and RND's positions
Test and prove it	The Playground, test runs, results statements, a readiness checklist and testing a skill
In a publisher's house	Joining a house when a publisher invites you
SDKs	Client libraries, TypeScript first

Publishers: your newsroom on SOM

For newsrooms evaluating SOM and their vendors in a house of their own, starting before any vendor has connected. Start with the publisher track.

Part	What it covers
The publisher track	Seven steps: map your newsroom, set up your house, bring in vendors, rehearse, observe, evaluate and go live
Your house, click by click	The portal pages: inviting vendors, coverage, rehearsals, stand-ins, who sees what, exporting your house
Skills in your newsroom	Skills from the newsroom's side: configuring them, which executors cover them, skills in your scenarios

Shared by both tracks

Section	What it covers
Concepts	The envelope, message families, snapshots, story ownership, verdicts, delivery, the routing map and forward compatibility. The envelope and snapshots, not deltas are the two things that catch most integrations
SOM 1.0 schema	Every message family's schema, and the SOM glossary
Reference	The Bus API, the token service, the rule catalogue (what every verdict means) and a glossary
Help	Ask RND, troubleshooting, notifications and the changelog

Status labels

Every page, and many rows in its tables, say how available the thing they describe is:

Label	Meaning
Available now	Works today, on your own
Via RND	Works today, but an RND engineer does it for you
Next	Decided and next in line, not available yet. No dates are promised
Coming	Planned, not available yet. No dates are promised

The claims rule

The gateway checks every message against SOM 1.0. Test runs are graded against a named suite: SOM 1.0.0 plus skill library 0.2.2 (som-1.0.0+lib-0.2.2). A result reads "passes som-bus suite som-1.0.0+lib-0.2.2", never "certified" or "compliant": SOM defines no conformance tiers, and nothing here certifies a product.

SOM is an open standard maintained by the SOM working group. This service is not endorsed by it. Where these docs describe a rule of the bus rather than of the standard, they say so.