# Canonical Sources Reduce Interface Drift ## Claim A business should store its governed facts once and generate each human or machine interface from that single source, rather than maintaining separate content for each surface. <!-- atomicity: 1 idea ✓ --> ## Scope & conditions - Holds when the different renderings (HTML page, structured data, feed, API, agent interface) share ownership, validation, and freshness controls anchored to the same source. - Breaks when a protocol-specific need is forced into an unsuitable common model — some surfaces genuinely need data the canonical source doesn't carry. - This is an architecture claim about drift prevention, not a claim that every business needs every interface type. ## Evidence Websites are increasingly consumed by both humans and AI agents/search systems that each need differently-shaped access to the same underlying facts. Maintaining separate, independently-edited content for each surface guarantees the surfaces will eventually disagree — a price change updated on the HTML page but not the structured-data feed, a policy updated in the FAQ but not in the machine-readable schema. A single governed source, rendered out to each surface, makes that disagreement structurally impossible rather than a discipline someone has to remember to maintain. ## Links - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/A Network Is Open Only When Its Parts Are Independently Replaceable]] — contrasts: that claim is about swappable *layers* in an open network; this one is about a single *source* feeding multiple renderings — both are architecture claims about where the real coupling should live - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Retrieval Quality Is Set by the Unit of Knowledge Not the Retrieval Algorithm]] — extends: a canonical source only reduces drift if the unit of knowledge stored is the right shape for every downstream rendering to draw from - [[3. Resources/MOCs/AI & the Future of Knowledge Work MOC]] — applies-in: agent-mediated discovery is exactly the case where interface drift between human and machine surfaces becomes costly - [[WordPress Platform Design MOC]] — why a single declaration point is what makes a renderer swap safe ## Tests / falsifiers - Audit a real site for fact drift across its human page, structured data, and any published feed/API; if drift is rare even without a canonical-source architecture, the claim's practical urgency is overstated. - Find a canonical-source implementation that still drifted (e.g., due to caching or rendering bugs) — that would show the architecture reduces but doesn't eliminate drift, narrowing the claim's strength. ## Maintenance - Last tended: 2026-08-16 - Next review: 2026-11-16 ## Source - [[3. Resources/Readwise/Full Document Contents/Articles/The future of the website]] — "The answer isn't a second website. It's one source of truth with multiple renderings."