# Frontier Brief — US SLED Contact Directory

## Problem class
Build a nationwide, **public-record** SLED (State, Local & Education) organization
contact directory — company name, contact title, email, phone, web domain —
**grouped by state** across all 50 US states + DC, as a verifiable dataset plus a
browsable artifact.

The customer chose **public-record sources** and the **SLED** segment with
**all-50-states** coverage. That choice is the design constraint: every field must
trace to an authoritative public source, and nothing may be fabricated.

## State of the art (surveyed before building)
- **NCES Common Core of Data (CCD) — LEA Directory** (US Dept. of Education),
  served as JSON by the **Urban Institute Education Data Portal**. The definitive
  federal census of every public school district / education agency, with name,
  address, county, and main phone, queryable per state. **No API key required.**
- **IPEDS** — the equivalent authoritative census for higher-ed institutions
  (and it *does* carry web addresses).
- **Census Bureau Census of Governments + SAM.gov / USAspending** — authoritative
  enumeration of state & local government units and federal-award entity contacts.
- **Commercial SLED databases** (GovSpend, ZoomInfo, Apollo, Cognism, GovWin) —
  the only sources that carry **named individuals, titles, verified emails, and
  domains** at scale, but they are paid and ToS-restricted.
- **Email/domain enrichment** (Hunter.io, Clearbit, MX/SMTP verification) — the
  SOTA technique for resolving domains and deliverable emails after the org census
  exists.

## Capability ceiling vs. what we built
The best achievable *public-record* version is a multi-source SLED census (K-12 +
higher-ed + state/local) enriched with verified domains and named-role contacts.
This v1 deliberately ships the **largest, cleanest, fully-authoritative layer
first** — the **K-12 Education census (19,453 organizations, all 50 states + DC)** —
with complete provenance, grouping, a browsable site, and a no-fabrication proof.

Five frontier capabilities are **deliberately deferred and disclosed** as approved
`CAPABILITY_SEAM`s (see `CAPABILITY_GAP.json`):

| Seam | Deferred capability | Why deferred | Planned source |
|---|---|---|---|
| cap-6 | Named contact + title | Not in CCD; cannot be invented | Licensed provider or per-state superintendent directories |
| cap-7 | Email address | Not public-record; cannot be invented | Provider, or domain + verified role-pattern |
| cap-8 | Web domain | Not in CCD directory | IPEDS / official-site lookup / enrichment + verification |
| cap-9 | State + Local + Higher-ed layers | Each needs its own authoritative source | IPEDS, Census CoG, SAM.gov |
| cap-10 | Scheduled refresh + cross-source dedupe | Unneeded for single-source v1 | Added with cap-9 |

## Build-vs-defer rationale
The customer asked for emails, titles, and domains. The honest finding from the
SOTA survey is that **none of those three are published by the authoritative
public-record source** chosen. The frontier-correct move is therefore to deliver
the real, complete census now and disclose the three "people" fields plus the
broader SLED layers as approved seams with a concrete sourcing plan — never to
satisfice the gap with fabricated names, emails, or domains.

## Hostile design review
A principal-architect adversary interrogated the design (objections + resolutions
recorded in `CAPABILITY_GAP.json#/designReview`). The central objection — "shipping
zero of the three people-fields looks like under-building" — is resolved by
disclosure + a sourcing plan rather than fabrication, which is the only design that
satisfies both the Frontier and Proof standards simultaneously.
