| name | standards-match |
| description | Look up and return a focused set of Florida K-12 standards matching a grade, subject, and keyword or topic. Use this atom when a workflow or teacher needs the exact standard codes + descriptions for a topic WITHOUT generating any instructional artifact. Do NOT use for generating lesson plans, activities, or assessments — hand those off to atom-objective-write or atom-activity-generate. Do NOT use if the teacher needs all standards for a whole subject; use tools/fl_lookup.py directly. |
standards-match
Returns the 1–5 most relevant Florida standards for a given topic/grade/subject. No generation — lookup and return only. Used by lesson-planner, assessment-designer, and any skill needing verified standard codes before generating content.
Input
{
"grade": "4",
"subject": "Math",
"topic": "fractions on a number line",
"max": 3
}
grade: K–12 or grade band (e.g. "6-8"). subject: Math, ELA, Science, Social Studies, ELD, etc.
topic: keyword phrase or short description. max: how many standards to return (default 3).
Output
{
"tool": "standards-match",
"query": {"grade": "4", "subject": "Math", "topic": "fractions on a number line"},
"standards": [
{"code": "MA.4.FR.1.1", "description": "Model and express a fraction including mixed numbers...", "source": "FL B.E.S.T.", "confidence": "high"},
{"code": "MA.4.NSO.1.1", "description": "Express how the value of a digit changes...", "source": "FL B.E.S.T.", "confidence": "medium"}
],
"match_method": "keyword | L1_cache | uncertain",
"human_review_required": true,
"note": "Verify codes against CPALMS before citing in any artifact."
}
match_method is unified_index when the unified offline index is built
(python3 tools/offline_index.py --standards "<topic>" --grade <g> --subject <s> — a deterministic
zero-token SQLite/FTS5 lookup that returns only the matching rows; see canonical-sources/index/README.md),
L1_cache for the standards-only cache (shared/cache/cache.py), keyword for tools/fl_lookup.py direct
search, uncertain when no index is built and the match is model-inferred. Prefer the index — it
returns verbatim canonical rows (~100–350 tokens) instead of loading the ~470k-token standards corpus or
recalling from memory, so it cannot fabricate a code. Never fabricate a standard code — return empty
standards and explain in note instead.
How to use this atom
"Find the top 3 Florida B.E.S.T. Math standards for grade 4 fractions on a number line."
→ atom-standards-match returns the JSON above
→ caller passes standards[] to atom-objective-write or atom-activity-generate
Do NOT use this atom for
- Generating any instructional content (use atom-objective-write, atom-activity-generate)
- NGSSS or Common Core lookup (label the framework in
subject if non-BEST)
- Confirming whether a standard was repealed — route to standards-updater
Pipeline note
Output conforms to protocol-layer/metadata-schema.md. Follows references/method.md at the Standards step only. No Generation or Differentiation step — this atom stops at Standards Alignment and returns. human_review_required: true because model-inferred matches are not guaranteed correct.
