References and verification register

All resources used by the handbook are linked below. Verification on 24 August 2026 used two passes:

• Pass 1 — URL/content check: open the exact referenced URL and confirm that the page/document exists and matches the cited topic.
• Pass 2 — final recheck: reopen every final canonical URL after the book edits and confirm it still resolves. Important claims were also reviewed against the source content rather than only checking HTTP reachability.

PASS / PASS means both checks succeeded. A note is shown where a redirect or lifecycle caveat matters.

This is a dated edition snapshot, not a claim that semantic support is permanently current. docs/evidence-freshness.json records separate automated URL, browser, and human editorial reviews for fast-moving sources and chapters 15–17. Follow docs/evidence-freshness.md when a review date or source-change trigger is reached.

Primary, official, government, and research sources

Practitioner cross-check sources

These sources influenced organization and teaching emphasis. They do not replace the primary technical evidence above.

Verification caveats

• S15: the previous URL redirected. The canonical reference now uses Microsoft’s current transactional-out-box-cosmos path.
• S46: ISO/IEC/IEEE 29148:2018 remains the current published edition, but ISO marks it for revision and shows a replacement draft under development. The handbook therefore avoids depending on edition-specific wording that is not visible in the public ISO abstract.
• ISO full text: the public ISO pages expose metadata and abstracts, not the entire paid standards. Detailed requirement-writing and verification guidance in this book is additionally grounded in the publicly accessible NASA Systems Engineering Handbook (S53) and Microsoft architecture guidance.
• HelloInterview: P1-P4 are deliberately secondary. They are used for teaching structure and heuristics only.
• Fast-moving agent ecosystem: Chapters 15-17 are a source-verified snapshot as of 24 August 2026. Model names, prices, context limits, SDK behavior, service quotas, and provider policies must be rechecked for a concrete implementation.
• MCP: S70 describes the released 28 July 2026 stateless core. Older MCP material may assume a stateful initialization/session lifecycle. S71 is a roadmap and is not evidence that proposed agent-messaging or other future capabilities are implemented.
• A2A and Agent Skills: interoperability does not establish trust. Version support, identity, authorization, data handling, and remote behavior still require explicit contracts and testing.
• OpenTelemetry GenAI: S77 marks its semantic conventions as development status. Use an internal mapping layer and expect names or attributes to change.
• Model Spec: S85 is a dated behavioral-specification snapshot and an example of instruction/autonomy design, not a universal standard or a guarantee of any particular deployed model behavior.
• Benchmarks: S86-S88 demonstrate evaluation methods and task environments. Their scores do not substitute for product-specific evaluations, failure cases, policies, tools, data, or repeated trials.
• Automated-link recheck: ISO (S1, S46) and the OpenAI practical guide (S63) rejected the command-line recheck with HTTP 403, while their exact pages remained accessible and content-verified through the browser pass. This is recorded as bot protection, not treated as evidence that the resources are unavailable.

End of handbook