Operational Information Release 26.1

To our customers and the AEC community,

I am excited to share our first operational update to CSI Dynamic Standards℠, now available to all licensed customers.

For decades, CSI and its volunteers have built and maintained MasterFormat^®, UniFormat^®, and OmniClass^® as a shared language our industry designs, builds, and operates on. Our mission at The Construction Standard is to carry that legacy into modern delivery, so the standards you rely on keep working as the industry around them changes.

And the industry is changing fast. Projects today run on live feeds, software, and thousands of hands touching a single scope of work, and as more of the industry turns to AI and automation, having a reliable source of coordinated information can catch small inconsistencies instead of compounding them. Enterprise models, software, and handoffs all depend on that reliability.

That is the problem CDS is built to solve. Instead of enterprises building and maintaining their own crosswalks, we maintain the data and those connections centrally within the CDS environment. In between editions from CSI, we will deliver improvements to that connected model through releases like this one.

Here is what that looks like in 26.1, and what it doesn’t change. If your firm runs on MasterFormat 2020 or an earlier edition, nothing changes for you. This release is built against MasterFormat 2026, where we’re delivering new UniFormat elements, a substantial cleanup of legacy data, and the first cross-references connecting MasterFormat, UniFormat and OmniClass. If you work across multiple editions, moving between them is now easier.

26.1 also marks a first: when CSI updates one of these standards, the change now flows through MasterFormat, UniFormat, and OmniClass at the same time. Every future CSI update will keep all three in sync, rather than on separate schedules. The value will show up in cleaner data, more reliable search and handoffs, and standards that hold together as the industry continues to go digital.

You can find the full details in the release notes here: OIR 26.1 Release Notes

We built CDS as a living, connected platform to keep working as the industry around it changes. The value will prove itself over time, a little more with each release, in documentation that keeps getting more complete, better coordinated, and easier to trust. In the coming months and years, our team will keep delivering new tools, products, and support to help the industry reduce risk and move forward into the future together.

Chris AndersonCEOThe Construction Standard