Readiness checklist

Work through the lines that apply to you (see Which parts apply to you). Each points at the page that tests it. When your lines are ticked, you have a result you can share with a publisher.

Every producer

Check	Page
My test suite validates envelope and payload against the pinned SOM 1.0 schemas, with format assertion on	Validate
All 18 published positive examples pass my validator; all 20 negative ones fail	Prove your error paths
My product sends som_version: "1.0.0", a UUID message_id per message and a SOM system_type	The envelope
system_id is configurable per installation	Plan your integration
The token is cached and refreshed before expiry; the secret lives in a secret store and is rotated	Credentials
Every message for a story carries its correlation_id; reactions carry causation_id	Run a whole story
My product never sends two messages for the same story at once	Run a whole story
Retries reuse the same message_id and body, only for timeouts, 429 and 5xx, with backoff	Retries and idempotency
400, 403 and 413 alert and don't retry	Handle the bus's answers
No media or long content in messages: references only, well under 240,000 bytes	The envelope
The policy cases behave as documented	Prove your error paths

Producers of story.context

Check	Page
Every snapshot is the whole story; the portal's diff between snapshots shows only intended changes	Run a whole story
sequence_number strictly increases and updated_at never goes back, across restarts and failovers	Run a whole story
A whole story of seven or more snapshots is accepted end to end	Run a whole story
Terminal stories can't be revived, and the 409 is shown to the user sensibly	Run a whole story
After a 409 my product resynchronises from current state instead of resending	Handle the bus's answers
Every sequence case behaves as documented	Prove your error paths

Consumers

Check	Page
Acknowledge after handling; enough visibility for slow work; alert on the dead-letter queue	HTTPS pull API, Dead-letter queues and replay
Snapshots are applied as whole replacements; the highest sequence_number per story wins	Order, duplicates and snapshots
Idempotent on message_id: a replay changes nothing	Order, duplicates and snapshots
Unknown message types, extensions, fields and enum values are ignored; no branching on som_version	Order, duplicates and snapshots
Consumer tests T1 to T7 end in the expected state	Test your consumer
Every consumer scenario of a test run passes	Test runs

Skill executors

Check	Page
Warnings validate: UUID warning_id, string skill_warning_ref, a SOM system_type	A warning that validates
Trigger, no-trigger, redelivery and killed-story tests behave as documented	Test a skill by hand
Every case of the skill harness passes, apart from pending spec	Test runs
Dependencies on message types without a 1.0 schema are listed as provisional	Topics without a 1.0 schema

Validate in your own tests

Catch schema mistakes before the bus sees them:

1. Take the schemas from the SOM repository at the 1.0 release, and pin the commit. The bus uses 7297fef9adc6d14a74bdd7550c78decaa099a1ad.
2. Use a JSON Schema 2020-12 validator, with format assertion on for uuid and date-time. Most validators only annotate formats by default: then a message_id of "msg-1" passes your tests and fails on the bus with envelope.format.uuid.
3. Validate the envelope with envelope.schema.json, then the payload with the schema chosen only by message_type (see Message families).
4. Add the one rule the schema can't express: som_version must not be before 1.0. Send "1.0.0".
5. Run the published positive and negative examples through it. If your validator disagrees with any of them, it isn't set up like the bus.

Share your result

Publishers compare vendors on this evidence: see how they read it in Evaluate your vendors.

The cases the bus grades itself go into a results statement: made from your complete test runs, in fixed words, and shared with a publisher or by link until a date you choose.

For everything else on this checklist, write it up. Keep it short and factual, so a publisher can compare vendors:

Product:        Acme NCS 4.2.0
Environment:    SOM Managed Bus Sandbox, 2026-09-24
Suite:          som-1.0.0+lib-0.2.2 (SOM schema pack 7297fef)
Roles tested:   producer story.context, system.audit; consumer skill.warning.raised, telling.*
Result:         passes som-bus suite som-1.0.0+lib-0.2.2, on the checks listed below
Checks:         [the ticked lines above]
Not tested:     [what doesn't apply, or isn't available yet]
Known gaps:     [anything unticked, and why]

• Say "passes som-bus suite som-1.0.0+lib-0.2.2", and list the checks. Never "SOM certified" or "SOM compliant": SOM defines no certification, and RND certifies nothing.
• Name what you didn't test. Publishers trust a result more when it states its limits.
• Keep the message_ids of your key test messages. RND can confirm verdicts from them.