{
  "schema_version":"1.0",
  "canonical":true,
  "last_updated":"2026-08-16",
  "target_coverage":{"firms":"50-100 major regional firms","years":"2018-2026"},
  "observed_fields":["firm_id","year","employment","revenue","capex","technology_disclosures","ai_disclosures","automation_language","restructuring","layoffs","hiring","skill_composition","geography","sector","ownership","source_url","source_hash"],
  "variable_classes":{
    "observed_disclosure":"Directly reported or source-extracted evidence.",
    "coded_ai_adoption_event":"Human-coded event derived under the published coding protocol.",
    "inferred_treatment_variable":"Analytical variable constructed from observed/coded inputs and explicitly labelled as inferred."
  },
  "validation":{"second_coding_required":true,"blind_to_primary_labels":true,"agreement_statistics_required":true,"disagreement_log_required":true},
  "causal_boundary":"Panel structure alone does not establish causal identification."
}