Guideline sources
Every upstream body this manual takes numbers from: which edition each tool is written against, when a human last checked it, and exactly which tools and cards move if it changes.
FRESHNESS AT A GLANCE
BY SOURCE — WORST FIRST
BY TOOL — WHAT EACH ONE OWES
HOW THIS IS KEPT UP TO DATE — AND WHAT IT CANNOT CATCH
A scheduled job (check_guidelines.mjs, run monthly by GitHub) checks each body two ways: a PubMed search for newly indexed guidelines, and a fingerprint of the body’s own guideline index page. When either moves, it opens a GitHub issue naming the tools and cards affected.
Neither check is complete, and the design assumes that. A body that swaps a revised PDF in at the same address, or reorganizes its website, can change a guideline without either probe noticing. So every source also carries a review interval — 180 days for the ones that drive the most numbers, 365 for the rest — and going past it puts the source on the list whether or not anything was detected. The crawler shortens the time to notice; the calendar is what guarantees the look happens.
A quiet month therefore reads as no change detected, never as nothing changed. Process: GUIDELINE-WATCH.md.