A Plan Must Match the Checker That Reads It

A plan is only useful if the software checking it understands the same version of its format. If a plan and its checker quietly disagree about what a field means, something that looks valid may not mean what the operator thinks it means.

Think of a form whose instructions changed between editions. A box labelled “amount” might now expect a different value. The safe response is to check that the form and its instructions are the same edition—not to guess from the label.

Workbench 0.99.48 tightened hosted-plan validation so the plan's declared format version must exactly match the version the checker supports. Missing or mismatched values are refused instead of being coerced or treated as close enough. Regression checks cover malformed and wrong-type version values as well as mismatches.

Shared Workbench owns the validator and the format checks. The project still owns what its plan means and whether it should rely on the result. This check does not approve a plan, perform a remote action, or interrupt unrelated active work. New work uses current checks; paused work rechecks its assumptions before continuing.

When a plan format changes, update its checker and tests together. If an older plan no longer matches, create or review a current plan; do not edit its version label until it merely looks acceptable.