specification: API Commons Lifecycle
specificationVersion: '0.1'
provider: Appalachian Regional Commission
providerId: appalachian-regional-commission
generated: '2026-09-07'
method: probed
source: >-
  Live probes of arc.gov and the ARC ArcGIS Online organization on 2026-09-07, plus the version
  fields the two surfaces report about themselves.
description: >-
  ARC operates no API lifecycle. There is no versioning policy, no deprecation policy, no sunset
  commitment, no SLA, no status page and no changelog for either machine-readable surface, because
  neither is managed as a product — one is a CMS side effect, the other a GIS publishing platform.
  The versions the APIs report are their vendors', not ARC's, and consumers get no notice when ARC
  changes what is behind them.
versioning:
  policy_published: false
  surfaces:
    - name: ARC WordPress REST API
      scheme: namespace-in-path
      current_version: wp/v2
      owner_of_version: WordPress core
      note: >-
        ARC's custom post types and taxonomies live inside wp/v2 and are added or removed by plugin
        and theme configuration. Nothing bumps a version when they change. An agent should re-read
        https://www.arc.gov/wp-json/ rather than cache a route list.
    - name: ARC Geospatial API
      scheme: currentVersion reported in every descriptor
      current_version: '12'
      owner_of_version: Esri (ArcGIS Online)
      note: >-
        ARC's own versioning shows up in service NAMES instead — arcfy2014 through arcfy2025,
        arc_county_economic_status_fy2027_tiger, arc_acs_2019_* through arc_acs_2023_*. Each fiscal
        or ACS year is a new service rather than a new version of an existing one, so old years stay
        callable and nothing is ever formally deprecated.
deprecation:
  policy_published: false
  rfc8594_headers: false
  evidence: >-
    No Sunset or Deprecation header was returned by any of the routes probed on 2026-09-07, and no
    deprecation, retirement or API-change page exists on arc.gov.
  deprecated_operations: []
  observed_decay:
    - detail: >-
        The COVID-19 Cases in Appalachia web map and its web mapping application are still published
        as public items in ARC's ArcGIS Online organization. They are historical rather than broken,
        but nothing in the catalog marks them as retired.
    - detail: >-
        Economic-status services exist for FY2014 through FY2025 plus FY2027 alongside ACS series
        from 2019 to 2023. There is no manifest saying which is current; a consumer has to infer it
        from the name.
sla:
  published: false
  evidence: No service-level commitment appears anywhere on arc.gov.
status_page:
  published: false
  evidence: >-
    status.arc.gov does not resolve. arc.statuspage.io resolves to Statuspage's /inactive page —
    an unclaimed subdomain, not an ARC status page. Probed 2026-09-07.
  note: >-
    No StatusPage pointer is emitted for this provider, because there is no status page to point at.
changelog:
  published: false
  evidence: >-
    No dated API or data changelog exists. https://www.arc.gov/newsroom/ carries press releases and
    https://www.arc.gov/feed/ is the site RSS, but neither records changes to the data or the routes.
  note: >-
    No ChangeLog pointer is emitted. The newsroom feed is already wired as Blog and is not a changelog.
support:
  channel: https://www.arc.gov/contact-arc/
  developer_channel: none
  note: >-
    ARC has no developer support path. A consumer of these APIs contacts the same general-purpose
    web form the public uses, and neither surface is acknowledged as an API anywhere on the site.
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: info@apievangelist.com