Architecture Direction

The storage provider should be replaceable. The meaning of the field record should not be.

The Field Data Protocol is the contract that makes customer-owned storage possible: a provider-independent, versioned, machine-readable model of field operations.

ARCHITECTURE DIRECTION

The protocol is partially implemented in today's product (stable inspection identity, revisions, content digests). The full envelope and sync semantics described here are direction, not shipped.

The public model

Organization
Site / Project
Asset
Template / Version
Inspection / Revision
Evidence
Finding
Corrective Action
Verification
Approval
Audit
Report

Records carry stable identity, relationships, content hashes, revisions, retention classification and exportability. Google Drive integration is not the platform. The data protocol and compatibility model are.

Sync semantics being built toward

Local-first commit: the device's record is durable before any sync
Incremental change feed and resumable upload
Idempotent operations: retries never duplicate records
Explicit conflict states: no blind last-write-wins for compliance records
Submitted inspections stay immutable, corrections create revisions
Original evidence never overwritten