A short AI-narrated film with English captions. Pressing play loads the YouTube player. Watch on YouTube
Guide Origin: Community | ArcKit Version: [VERSION]
/arckit:ca-gc-digital-standards generates a Government of Canada Digital Standards conformance scorecard for a federal digital service. It assesses the service against the 10 Digital Standards individually, surfaces evidence and gaps per standard, captures remediation actions with owners and target dates, and produces a per-standard maturity roadmap. Cross-cutting themes — accessibility, open data and code, ethical AI, user research practice — are scored once across the standards they touch.
The Digital Standards are not aspirational principles. They sit under the TBS Policy on Service and Digital and the Directive on Service and Digital; ADMs are accountable for adherence and TBS audits conformance through the digital reporting cycle. Standard 6 is reinforced by the Accessible Canada Act and the Accessible Canada Regulations, which set the statutory floor regardless of how the digital scorecard reads. Treat this artefact as a delivery and governance gate — not a self-assessment exercise.
Inputs
| Artefact | Purpose |
|---|---|
Requirements (ARC-<id>-REQ-v1.0.md) |
Service description, user populations, intended outcomes |
Service assessment (ARC-<id>-SVCASS-v*.md) |
GDS-style evidence base — many points map onto Digital Standards |
| Retrospective notes | Iteration cadence, learning loops, team practices |
| Accessibility audits | WCAG 2.1 AA / 2.2 AA conformance, manual and assistive-tech reviews |
| PIA / AIA artefacts | Standard 5 (security and privacy) and Standard 9 (ethical) evidence |
Command
/arckit:ca-gc-digital-standards <project ID or service description>
Output: projects/<id>/ARC-<id>-DIGSTD-v1.0.md
Assessment Structure
| Section | Contents |
|---|---|
| Document Control | Canadian classification (UNCLASSIFIED / Protected A–C / CONFIDENTIAL / SECRET / TOP SECRET) |
| Revision History | Version, date, author, changes, approvals |
| Executive Summary | Conformance posture across the 10 standards, top remediation actions, maturity headline |
| Service Description | Service, owner, user populations, lifecycle stage, key artefacts |
| Per-Standard Assessment | One sub-table per standard with Evidence, Gaps, Remediation, Owner, Target date, Maturity |
| Cross-Cutting Themes | Accessibility, open data and code, ethical AI, user research — scored across the standards they touch |
| Maturity Roadmap | Current vs target maturity per standard, milestones, owners, dates |
| Open Items | Outstanding decisions, blocked remediations, deferred standards work |
| External References | Document Register, Citations, Unreferenced |
Maturity scale
The scorecard uses a CMMI-style 5-level progression for each standard:
| Level | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Initial | Practice is ad hoc, undocumented, or absent. Conformance is incidental rather than designed. |
| Repeatable | Practice happens consistently on this service, but is informal and dependent on the current team. |
| Defined | Practice is documented, standardised across the team, and onboarded into team rituals. |
| Measured | Outcomes are instrumented; the team has metrics that prove conformance, not just activity. |
| Optimising | The team uses the metrics to iterate the practice itself. Conformance improves over time without prompting. |
Score each standard independently. Do not collapse the 10 dimensions into a single overall maturity number — that loses the per-standard signal TBS reviewers need.
When to run
- Pre-launch — before go-live for a new federal digital service to evidence conformance to all 10 standards.
- ATO renewal — pair with
ca-itsg-33andca-piaso the security, privacy, and digital scorecards refresh together. - Quarterly governance review — TBS reporting cycles surface conformance gaps, so refresh the scorecard ahead of each cycle.
- Substantive service change — new audience, new channel, new automated decision, new processor, or change of jurisdiction.
Common pitfalls
- Treating the standards as advisory. The Digital Standards are policy under the Policy on Service and Digital; non-conformance has audit consequences. Do not write the scorecard as a discretionary self-rating.
- Missing the WCAG / Accessible Canada Act floor. Standard 6 is anchored in statute. WCAG 2.1 AA / 2.2 AA conformance is the operational target, and statutory accessibility plans, feedback processes, and progress reports are mandatory regardless of how the scorecard reads.
- Default-private working when "Work in the open" is the rule. Standard 3 requires open-by-default. Reasons not to publish must be explicit, narrow, and time-boxed. Default-private is itself a non-conformance — remediate it, do not rationalise it.
- Uniform maturity claims rather than per-standard. A service can be advanced on accessibility and immature on open code. The scorecard MUST report dimension-by-dimension; an aggregated overall maturity number is misleading and is not accepted by TBS reviewers.
- Confusing this with the GDS Service Standard. The two regimes overlap conceptually but are governed differently. Use
service-assessmentfor the GDS regime; this command is the GC-specific complement.
Handoffs
service-assessment— Many of the GDS Service Standard points overlap with the GC Digital Standards (user research, accessibility, iteration, openness). The Digital Standards scorecard feeds the broader service-assessment evidence base directly; cross-link the same evidence rather than duplicating it. Where the regimes diverge (e.g. open-by-default, ethical AI), keep the per-standard treatment authoritative here.roadmap— Identified gaps and remediation actions become roadmap milestones with owners, dates, and dependencies. Carry the per-standard maturity progression forward so the strategic roadmap shows how conformance improves over the planning horizon, not just feature delivery.
Statutory currency
The Digital Standards may be revised by TBS — the standards themselves and the Directive on Service and Digital both evolve, and the Digital Operations Strategic Plan is updated annually. The Accessible Canada Regulations expand in tranches across federal entities and reporting categories. Cite the version verified at the verification date in the Document Register, and re-verify on every refresh of the scorecard. Provincial accessibility regimes (AODA in Ontario, the BC Accessibility Act, Loi visant à favoriser l'intégration in Quebec) layer on top where the service has provincial reach — they require their own assessments and are out of scope here.