The specification
The standard
OPFiles is defined by a written specification and a short quickstart. The specification is the canonical reference; this page tells you how to read it, links the raw source, and is honest about what is not yet published as a rendered web version.
Status of this page
A rendered, web-readable version of the specification and the quickstart is not published yet. It depends on a source-to-HTML render step so that the web pages cannot drift from the canonical Markdown; until that render step ships, this page links the raw source directly rather than a hand-copied duplicate that could fall out of step. Reading the raw source is the accurate path today.
How to read the specification
The specification is a draft. It defines the store layout and naming, the pointer and discovery model, the git-repository and migration rules, the release triad and its gates, the record model and status grammar, views and the closed transform vocabulary, the enforcement posture, rotation and archive, import, the genericization boundary, the conformance vocabulary, and the residual-coverage disclosures.
Conformance language follows common standards practice: MUST is an absolute requirement, SHOULD is a strong recommendation departed from only for a recorded reason, and MAY is genuinely optional. Statements without these keywords are descriptive.
Draft status and self-asserted conformance
The specification is a working draft and the reference tooling lands verb by verb. Until the validation tooling covers a given claim, conformance to that claim is self-asserted, and a report says so: an unqualified "conformant" claim is never emitted, by tooling or by prose. See the disclosure page for what the standard and its tooling do and do not establish.