A record of method
How skilled work is done, written down while there is still someone to ask.
The United States has documented its historic buildings continuously since 1933, in the largest architectural archive in the world. That record says what was built. It does not say how — not the sequence, not the tools, not the cues a practitioner reads, not the judgment. This register exists to record the part that is missing, from the people who still hold it.
Computed from published federal sources by a published rule, alongside ten further named practices that reach no code either. Read the assessment · re-run the rule.
What is recorded
Four layers, and only one of them is scarce
| Layer | What it asserts | Where it can come from |
|---|---|---|
| Entry | A person works in a trade, and carries a permanent number for life. | Public sources, or the person. |
| Transmission Record | A named person taught a named person, attested by both. | Programs, employers, the pair themselves. |
| Practice Record | The method itself, to a depth at which a competent practitioner who never met the master could attempt it from the record alone. | Only from a master, while they are living. |
| Condition Observation | How finished work held up, on a date, in a place. | Anyone, free, forever. |
The first two layers can be assembled from material that is already public, and largely have been. The third cannot be assembled at all. It is the reason the other three exist, and it is the one that stops being possible when a practitioner retires.
Start here
The American Red List
48 trades measured against federal employment, projection and apprenticeship data by a rule anyone may re-run. 3 critically endangered, 12 endangered, and 8 that no federal occupation code reaches at all.
See the assessment →Appropriate records
Federal law requires “appropriate records” of historic property and defines nothing further. The restriction to fabric is made in program guidelines, not in statute — and one program has already departed from it.
Read the paper →The first twelve
Twelve master-and-successor pairs, recorded in full under the published standard, at no charge and with no obligation to continue. The findings publish before version 1.0 goes out for comment — including the failures.
Apply →What this is not
The Register does not assess skill, license anyone to practice, certify competence, or warrant workmanship. A record states that a transmission occurred and who attested it. The only judgment recorded anywhere is the master’s own, and it is recorded as the master’s. Health and care work is outside the standard entirely.