Zero Day Document Control

What is it?

ZDDC is a convention, not a platform. Every deliverable's filename encodes its tracking number, revision, status, and title; every transmittal folder is date-prefixed and self-describing. A plain folder on your computer or a shared drive becomes a fully searchable, auditable record — no server, no database software, nothing to install to read it.

The tools below are optional helpers around this structure. Each is a single HTML file that works entirely on your own machine: open it, pick a folder, and you're working. They run offline and never upload anything. You can start with Browse on your existing files right now — there's nothing to set up first.

Read the full specification →

A future-proof, universal, globally distributed database

That is a grand phrase for properly named files in properly named folders, but each word is doing real work.

Universal. ZDDC does not decide what a record is. You do, with a tracking-number pattern. A drawing, a purchase order, a meeting, a lab result, a subcontract's schedule: anything that can be named by a pattern can be stored, tracked and revised the same way. The convention describes the naming, not the subject.

Global. The metadata is in the filename and the folder, not in a system beside them. Wherever some of the files are, that much of the database is there too, complete and readable.

Distributed. The whole database is everything, anywhere, that conforms to the specification. Almost certainly nobody holds the full set, and nothing requires them to. There are servers, but there is no central one. Each party keeps its own copy of what it issued and what it received, and the copies agree because they follow the same rules, not because they phone home.

Database. It is built on the oldest and most tested database there is: the filesystem. Folders index, filenames carry the fields, revisions and status are read straight off the name. Every operating system, backup tool and search box already speaks it.

Why it is future-proof

Most systems keep the meaning of their data in a schema that lives beside the data, in a database only their software can read. When the software changes, the schema changes, and the data has to be carried across in a migration. Every migration is a project, and every project is a chance to lose something.

ZDDC keeps no such second place. The meaning is in the names, and the names follow a published specification that anyone can read without any software at all. A file named ACM-NGS-A1-EL-DWG-0001_B (IFC) - Single Line Diagram.pdf says what it is, which revision it is and why it was issued, today and in fifty years, to a person, a script or a tool that does not exist yet.

So there is nothing to migrate to. A well-named file in a well-named folder cannot get simpler. That is what future-proof means here: not that the software will last, but that the data will not need it to.

Why there are no migrations

• The server keeps no database of its own. Access rules, record history and keys are themselves files in the same tree. The indexes it uses for speed are rebuilt from the files, so they can be thrown away and recreated at any time.
• Upgrading is replacing one program. The files stay exactly where they are. There is no export, no import and no conversion step.
• The software only ever adds. A new release may add optional fields and features, but never renames or removes what files already on disk use, and it keeps reading every older form. A file written years ago keeps reading the same.
• Stop the server, and the folder is still the record. Every file can be read with ordinary tools, so even the software is optional.

Why it scales

• It grows the way your storage grows. The record lives on the file server, NAS or cloud drive you already run, back up and secure, and scales with it.
• Work divides itself. Projects, parties and transmittals are separate folders, so no single table or lock grows with the whole estate. Adding a project adds folders, not load on a central system.
• There is no central bottleneck. Each organisation runs its own copy for its own work; many readers and tools can use the same files at once.

And if you want to move it

Because nothing lives outside the files, a plain copy is a complete, working slice of the record: to a USB stick, another server, cloud storage or an archive. ZDDC never asks you to do this, and nothing about running it requires it. It is simply possible, which is a feature: your record is never locked to a medium, a vendor or the software that wrote it.

Current versions

The naming convention, its optional extensions and the software are versioned separately, so a tool update never looks like a change to your files' meaning.

How the versions fit together →

The tools

Single-file apps. Click one to open it now, or right-click → Save As to keep your own copy — each works offline forever, with no install and no updates.

To open a folder straight from your computer, use a Chromium-based browser — Chrome, Edge, or Brave. That one feature isn't available in Firefox or Safari yet. Browse all versions →

But how can I trust you?

Great instinct — so don't. Verify instead. It takes about thirty seconds, and you never have to take our word for a thing.

We built it this way on purpose. The best privacy promise is the kind you can check for yourself.

Learn more

• Technical Reference — the full ZDDC convention: filename format, tracking numbers, revisions, status codes, folder naming, and transmittal workflow.
• All releases — every version of every tool.
• codeberg.org/VARASYS/ZDDC — source code and issue tracker.