The Update Framework (TUF)

TUF (The Update Framework) is a CNCF graduated framework for securing software update systems. It provides a specification for how software repositories should be structured and how clients should verify updates to protect against key compromise, rollback attacks, and mix-and-match attacks. TUF is used by many package managers and update systems including PyPI, Sigstore, and various Linux distributions. The framework defines a four-role metadata structure (root, targets, snapshot, timestamp) with threshold signing and delegation capabilities for scalable trust management.

The Update Framework (TUF) is listed with 7 APIs on the APIs.io network. Tagged areas include CNCF, Cloud-Native, Graduated, Security, and Software Supply Chain.

The The Update Framework (TUF) catalog on APIs.io includes 1 JSON-LD context and 1 Spectral governance ruleset.

The Update Framework (TUF)’s developer surface includes documentation, getting-started guide, engineering blog, and 18 more developer resources.

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24.3/100 emerging ▬ flat Agent 1/100 human only Front door AI 1/6 silent Heartbeat 96/100 alive Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-11-13 · rubric v0.28.0 · Show this score on your site →

AccessFreemium

7 APIs

CNCF Cloud-Native Graduated Security Software Supply Chain Software Updates Verification

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-11-13 · rubric v0.28.0

Composite quality — 24.3/100 · emerging

Contract Quality 4.8 / 21

Developer Ergonomics 4.9 / 17

Access Clarity 1.1 / 17

Operational Transparency 2.9 / 11

Contract Governance 2.4 / 10

Discoverability 5.9 / 9

Regulatory Posture 0.7 / 15

Agent readiness — 1/100 · human only

Machine-Readable Contract 0 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 0 / 10

Documented Reversibility 0 / 6

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 0 / 10

Idempotency 0 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8

Request/Response Examples 0 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 0 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

A2A Agent Card 0 / 8

Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 0 / 4

Delegated User Identity 0 / 6

Protected Resource Metadata 0 / 5

Registration Without a Human 0 / 6

Agentic Commerce Well-Known Document 0 / 5

Pagination 5 / 5

Distinct Operations 3 / 3

MCP Tool Quality 6 / 6

Regulatory Posture applies to this provider. Its tags matched the Horizontal (data, software, accessibility, platform) regime, so Regulatory Posture carries 15 points of the composite. If this regime is wrong for your business, say so on your provider repo — the applicability map is public and we will correct it.

Create-or-Update Ergonomics could not be measured. We hold no machine-readable contract for this provider to read, so there is nothing to measure a write surface against. Excluded rather than scored zero: never-measured and measured-empty are different facts. Publishing an OpenAPI is what makes this facet — and several others — scorable at all.

The six quality facets above are damped to 85 points between them, because the conditional facet above carries the other 15. That is why each facet's contribution is shown against a damped maximum: raising a quality facet moves the composite by 85% of its nominal weight, not 100%. The full arithmetic is at apis.io/rating/.

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Agent readiness — checks not met, largest first (exact, from this profile):

Machine-Readable Contract +18 pts — api_specs includes an OpenAPI document Ask about this →
MCP Server +12 pts — deployment.mode + probe verdict on the mcp/ manifest, not the pointer; an unprobed slug falls back to authorship Ask about this →
Agentic Access Contract +10 pts — agentic_access artifact present (x-agentic-access), graded by author Ask about this →
Machine-Readable Auth +10 pts — a served openid-configuration/oauth-authorization-server carrying `issuer` (served), else the securitySchemes class in the provider OpenAPIs — bound (mutualTLS, DPoP, Signature) > negotiable (oauth2 authorizationCode/clientCredentials, openIdConnect) > bearer (http bearer, apiKey) Ask about this →
Idempotency +9 pts — OpenAPI mutating operations declare an idempotency key — a header, a request-body property, or a named de-duplication token whose own description says so (verified); else common[].type matches /idempoten/i (documented) Ask about this →
Stable Error Semantics +8 pts — OpenAPI $refs a shared error schema across 4xx/5xx responses (verified), else common[].type includes ErrorCatalog / ErrorCodes / DeclineCodes Ask about this →

12 more unmet checks in the Agent Readiness table above.

Kin Score — facets with the most composite points still available (weight × headroom):

Contract Quality scores 22.7 — up to +19.3 composite points Ask about this →
Access Clarity scores 6.4 — up to +18.7 composite points Ask about this →
Developer Ergonomics scores 28.6 — up to +14.3 composite points Ask about this →

Each check links to what satisfies it. Publish the artifact, or tell us where it already lives, and the score moves on the next scoring run.

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Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. Every facet and dimension name above is a link: it opens that measurement's own page — what it means, the exact checks that feed it, how the whole catalog distributes on it, and the providers at the top of it. This rating is computed from the provider profile at artifacts.apis.io/tuf/apis.yml: open an issue on github.com/api-evangelist/tuf to ask a question or point us at an artifact you publish. Submit an artifact on GitHub — free → Manage your own listing — the Influence plan, $499/mo →

Markets this provider is in provisional

The Kin Score Market layer reads a provider inside its market: its position, and how deep its integrations go. Depth is only comparable within a position. Provisional and unweighted: not part of the Kin Score or agent readiness.

Market	Position	Depth	Registered MCP server	Declares compatibility
OpenSSF Best Practices Badge Holders	standard	23.6 (thin)	-	-

Registered MCP server and declares compatibility are report only — not weighted. Undeclared means we found nothing we can read, so there is no number: we never infer integrations.

APIs 7

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

TUF Repository Specification

The TUF specification defines the structure of update repositories including the root, targets, snapshot, and timestamp metadata files. Each metadata file has a defined schema w...

TUF Python Reference Implementation

The official Python reference implementation of The Update Framework (TUF) specification. Provides a metadata API for reading and writing TUF metadata files, an ngclient API imp...

TUF Go Implementation

A Go implementation of The Update Framework (TUF), heavily influenced by python-tuf's design. Provides metadata, TrustedMetadata, and Updater packages implementing the TUF clien...

TUF Rust Implementation

A Rust implementation of The Update Framework (TUF) specification providing a strongly-typed API for working with TUF metadata, verifying signatures, and implementing the TUF cl...

TUF JavaScript Implementation

A JavaScript/TypeScript implementation of The Update Framework (TUF) for use in Node.js environments and browser-based update systems. Enables TUF-compliant software update veri...

TUF on CI

A TUF repository management and signing tool designed for use in CI/CD pipelines. Enables teams to maintain a TUF repository using GitHub Actions and other CI systems for automa...

TUF Conformance Test Suite

The official TUF client conformance test suite for verifying that TUF client implementations correctly implement the TUF specification, including proper handling of all attack v...

Scroll for all 7

The Update Framework (TUF) API pricing

Not yet checked against The Update Framework (TUF)'s own pricing page. Compiled by API Evangelist on 2026-05-04; confirm before you rely on a figure. A free plan or tier is listed.

Plan	Price
Free freemium	Free
Professional paid	Free
Enterprise enterprise	—

Plan details, limits and sources →

Rate limits

Free Tier Default: 10 requests per minute
Free Tier Monthly Quota: 1000 requests per month
Professional Tier Default: 100 requests per minute

Compiled by API Evangelist, not yet checked against The Update Framework (TUF)'s documentation. All 5 limits →

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

The Update Framework (TUF) Plans Pricing

3 plans

PLANS

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

The Update Framework (TUF) Rate Limits

5 limits

RATE LIMITS

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

The Update Framework (TUF) Finops

FINOPS

Semantic Vocabularies 1

JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.

Tuf Context

0 classes · 12 properties

JSON-LD

Spectral Rules 1

Spectral governance rulesets for linting and validating these APIs. Counts are the severity each rule declares, not results of running them.

The Update Framework (TUF) — jsonschema rules

6 rules · 5 warn-severity 1 info-severity

SPECTRAL

JSON Schema 4

Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.

TUF Root Metadata

2 properties

JSON SCHEMA

TUF Snapshot Metadata

2 properties

JSON SCHEMA

TUF Targets Metadata

2 properties

JSON SCHEMA

TUF Timestamp Metadata

2 properties

JSON SCHEMA

JSON Structure 2

JSON Structure definitions describing this provider's data shapes.

The Update Framework (TUF) Root Metadata Structure

0 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

The Update Framework (TUF) Targets Metadata Structure

0 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

Examples 3

Example request and response payloads for these APIs.

The Update Framework (TUF) Python Client Usage Example

4 fields

EXAMPLE

The Update Framework (TUF) Root Metadata Example

3 fields

EXAMPLE

The Update Framework (TUF) Targets Metadata Example

3 fields

EXAMPLE

Security Posture 1

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

The Update Framework (TUF) Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · HSTS

SECURITY

Resources

Get Started 1

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

GettingStarted

GettingStarted

Documentation 6

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Documentation

Specification

JSONSchema

JSONSchema

JSONSchema

JSONSchema

Design & Contract 2

Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events

JSONLD

JSONLD

Vocabulary

Vocabulary

Build 2

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

GitHubOrganization

GitHubOrganization

GitHubRepository

GitHubRepository

Access & Security 1

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Operate 4

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

RateLimits

IssueTracker

Releases

Community

Commercial 2

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Plans

Plans

FinOps

FinOps

Company 2

The organization behind the API

Website

Website

Blog

Blog

Other 1

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

CNCF

CNCF

Source (apis.yml)

aid: tuf
name: The Update Framework (TUF)
description: TUF (The Update Framework) is a CNCF graduated framework for securing software update systems. It provides a
  specification for how software repositories should be structured and how clients should verify updates to protect against
  key compromise, rollback attacks, and mix-and-match attacks. TUF is used by many package managers and update systems including
  PyPI, Sigstore, and various Linux distributions. The framework defines a four-role metadata structure (root, targets, snapshot,
  timestamp) with threshold signing and delegation capabilities for scalable trust management.
url: https://theupdateframework.io
deliveryModel:
  model: unknown
  license_evidence:
    not_product:
    - theupdateframework/go-tuf
    - theupdateframework/python-tuf
    - theupdateframework/rust-tuf
    - theupdateframework/specification
    - theupdateframework/tuf-conformance
  open_source: unknown
  commercial: false
  callable_host: false
  label: Delivery model not determined — needs a product licence on record
  confidence: low
  source:
  - repository-not-product
  generated: '2026-09-25'
  method: derived
accessModel:
  pricing: freemium
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Freemium
  confidence: low
  source:
  - plans
  - security
  generated: '2026-11-13'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/tuf.png
tags:
- CNCF
- Cloud-Native
- Graduated
- Security
- Software Supply Chain
- Software Updates
- Verification
tags_raw:
- CNCF
- Cloud Native
- Graduated
- Security
- Software Supply Chain
- Software Updates
- Verification
created: '2026-03-16'
modified: '2026-05-03'
specificationVersion: '0.23'
type: Index
apis:
- aid: tuf:tuf-spec
  name: TUF Repository Specification
  description: The TUF specification defines the structure of update repositories including the root, targets, snapshot, and
    timestamp metadata files. Each metadata file has a defined schema with signatures, expiration dates, and delegation rules.
    Clients follow a defined verification workflow to securely resolve and download updates while protecting against various
    attack vectors including key compromise, rollback attacks, freeze attacks, and mix-and-match attacks. The specification
    is version 1.0.31.
  humanURL: https://theupdateframework.github.io/specification/latest/
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://theupdateframework.github.io/specification/latest/
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/theupdateframework/specification
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/tuf-root-metadata-schema.json
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/tuf-targets-metadata-schema.json
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/tuf-snapshot-metadata-schema.json
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/tuf-timestamp-metadata-schema.json
  tags:
  - Metadata
  - Repository Metadata
  - Specification
  - Verification
- aid: tuf:python-tuf
  name: TUF Python Reference Implementation
  description: The official Python reference implementation of The Update Framework (TUF) specification. Provides a metadata
    API for reading and writing TUF metadata files, an ngclient API implementing the TUF client update workflow, and a repository
    library for building TUF-compliant software repositories. Available on PyPI as the 'tuf' package.
  humanURL: https://theupdateframework.readthedocs.io/en/stable/
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://theupdateframework.readthedocs.io/en/stable/
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/theupdateframework/python-tuf
  - type: PackageRegistry
    url: https://pypi.org/project/tuf/
  tags:
  - Client Library
  - Python
  - Security
  - Software Updates
  - Supply Chain
- aid: tuf:go-tuf
  name: TUF Go Implementation
  description: A Go implementation of The Update Framework (TUF), heavily influenced by python-tuf's design. Provides metadata,
    TrustedMetadata, and Updater packages implementing the TUF client workflow and specification-compliant metadata handling,
    as well as multi-repository support via TAP 4.
  humanURL: https://github.com/theupdateframework/go-tuf
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://github.com/theupdateframework/go-tuf
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/theupdateframework/go-tuf
  tags:
  - Client Library
  - Go
  - Security
  - Software Updates
  - Supply Chain
- aid: tuf:rust-tuf
  name: TUF Rust Implementation
  description: A Rust implementation of The Update Framework (TUF) specification providing a strongly-typed API for working
    with TUF metadata, verifying signatures, and implementing the TUF client update workflow.
  humanURL: https://github.com/theupdateframework/rust-tuf
  properties:
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/theupdateframework/rust-tuf
  tags:
  - Client Library
  - Rust
  - Security
  - Software Updates
- aid: tuf:tuf-js
  name: TUF JavaScript Implementation
  description: A JavaScript/TypeScript implementation of The Update Framework (TUF) for use in Node.js environments and browser-based
    update systems. Enables TUF-compliant software update verification in the JavaScript ecosystem.
  humanURL: https://github.com/theupdateframework/tuf-js
  properties:
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/theupdateframework/tuf-js
  tags:
  - Client Library
  - JavaScript
  - Security
  - Software Updates
  - TypeScript
- aid: tuf:tuf-on-ci
  name: TUF on CI
  description: A TUF repository management and signing tool designed for use in CI/CD pipelines. Enables teams to maintain
    a TUF repository using GitHub Actions and other CI systems for automated, policy-driven key management and metadata signing
    workflows.
  humanURL: https://github.com/theupdateframework/tuf-on-ci
  properties:
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/theupdateframework/tuf-on-ci
  tags:
  - CI/CD
  - Key Management
  - Repository Management
  - Security
- aid: tuf:tuf-conformance
  name: TUF Conformance Test Suite
  description: The official TUF client conformance test suite for verifying that TUF client implementations correctly implement
    the TUF specification, including proper handling of all attack vectors and edge cases.
  humanURL: https://github.com/theupdateframework/tuf-conformance
  properties:
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/theupdateframework/tuf-conformance
  tags:
  - Compliance
  - Conformance Testing
  - Security
  - Testing
common:
- type: Plans
  url: plans/tuf-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/tuf-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/tuf-finops.yml
- type: IssueTracker
  url: https://github.com/theupdateframework/specification/issues
- type: Releases
  url: https://github.com/theupdateframework/specification/releases
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/tuf-domain-security.yml
- type: Website
  url: https://theupdateframework.io/
- type: Documentation
  url: https://theupdateframework.io/docs/
- type: GettingStarted
  url: https://theupdateframework.io/docs/getting-started/
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/theupdateframework
- type: GitHubRepository
  url: https://github.com/theupdateframework/python-tuf
- type: Specification
  url: https://theupdateframework.github.io/specification/latest/
- type: Blog
  url: https://theupdateframework.io/resources/news/
- type: CNCF
  url: https://www.cncf.io/projects/the-update-framework-tuf/
- type: Community
  url: https://github.com/theupdateframework/community
- type: JSONLD
  url: json-ld/tuf-context.jsonld
- type: JSONSchema
  url: json-schema/tuf-root-metadata-schema.json
- type: JSONSchema
  url: json-schema/tuf-targets-metadata-schema.json
- type: JSONSchema
  url: json-schema/tuf-snapshot-metadata-schema.json
- type: JSONSchema
  url: json-schema/tuf-timestamp-metadata-schema.json
- type: Vocabulary
  url: vocabulary/tuf-vocabulary.yml
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com

The Update Framework (TUF) API — frequently asked questions

Does The Update Framework (TUF) have an API?

Yes. APIs.io lists 7 APIs from The Update Framework (TUF), including TUF Repository Specification, TUF Python Reference Implementation and TUF Go Implementation, and 4 more.

How much does the The Update Framework (TUF) API cost?

APIs.io lists 3 pricing plans for The Update Framework (TUF), with each plan's price, limits and inclusions under Pricing on this page.

Is the The Update Framework (TUF) API ready for AI agents?

The Update Framework (TUF) has a Kin Score of 24.3 out of 100 (emerging) and an Agent Readiness score of 0.6 (human-only), scored by API Evangelist on 2026-11-13.

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