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CSG-1003Product Gating Spec · 16 sections · 90 fields in Zod

One application
for every credit decision.

CSG-1003 is the canonical commercial credit application standard. Mortgage has Fannie Mae's Form 1003. SBA has the 7(a). Alternative commercial lending had nothing — so we wrote it. The normative text is the CSG-1003 Product Gating Spec; its machine-readable form is the Zod source in packages/csg-schema. Neither is served at a public URL yet — ask us for a copy.

Browse the spec See the schema
18
core rows (§2)
8
product branches
16
spec sections
90
fields in Zod

The §2 core is 18 rows in the spec table, which expands to 22 Zod keys because the signature block (authorization, ESIGN consent, signature, date) and the country / state-province pair are each stored as separate fields.

§3 Master Router

One field activates the whole spec.

field77 is the Master Router. Its value — set by the borrower or inferred by the Intake agent — determines which §5–§13 branches activate, and which §4 cross-cutting blocks get pulled in with them. Every downstream gating rule keys off it.

The single-router design means a CSG-1003 intake is never ambiguous about which product branch is in scope. Implementations route a partially-collected application with a single map lookup: routeFromMasterRouter(choice) returns the branch, its sections, and whether the deal needs a human.

field77 · Master Router
enum: working_capital | ar_financing | po_financing | … (11 values)
  • working_capital§5
    RBF / working capital
  • ar_financing§6
    Invoice factoring
  • po_financing§7 + §4.1
    PO financing
  • inventory_financing§8 + §4.1
    Inventory
  • real_estate_financing§9
    Real estate
  • equipment_financing§10
    Equipment
  • letter_of_credit§11 + §4.1
    Letter of credit
  • stretch_financing§12
    Stretch (RBF + RE)
  • other · exploring_options · unknown§13
    Human handoff

One router, eight product branches, three catch-all values that hand the deal to a human. No SBA branch — that is not in the spec today.

Section index

16 sections. Read top-down.

§1–§4 define principles, the core, the router, and the cross-cutting field bank. §5–§12 are the product branches and §13 is the human-handoff route. §14–§16 are operational notes — build order, conversational guidance, legacy template cleanup — not conformance requirements.

  1. §1

    Design principles

    Core once. Conditional beyond core. No double-ask.

  2. §2

    Always-asked core

    18 rows of identity, ownership, and the signature block.

  3. §3

    Field 77 — Master Router

    One field, 11 choices, selects the branch.

  4. §4

    Cross-cutting field bank

    Trade finance (6), bank health (5), debt stack (5).

  5. §5

    RBF — working capital

    Product fit, urgency, term length, credit-score range.

  6. §6

    Factoring — A/R

    A/R balance, invoice terms, concentration, recourse, aging.

  7. §7

    PO financing

    PO size, frequency, margin, lead time, buyer credit. + §4.1

  8. §8

    Inventory financing

    Type, storage, WMS, turnover, perishability, value. + §4.1

  9. §9

    Real estate financing

    Purpose, type, value, mortgage balance, NOI, rent roll.

  10. §10

    Equipment financing

    New/used, type, make, vendor, cost, down payment, quote.

  11. §11

    Letter of credit

    LC type, beneficiary, amount, issue/expiry dates. + §4.1

  12. §12

    Stretch financing

    RBF + real-estate composite. Collateral flag, deal target.

  13. §13

    Catch-all route

    Other / exploring / unknown. No fields; goes to a human.

  14. §14

    Field renumbering cleanup

    Operational: legacy PDF template IDs.

  15. §15

    Conversational adaptation

    Operational: how the Intake agent walks the spec.

  16. §16

    Implementation order

    Operational: suggested build sequence for branches.

Conformance framework

Four levels. Proposed, not yet awarded.

Bronze / Silver / Gold / Certified is the framework we publish so implementers know what “supports CSG-1003” should mean. It is a proposal, not a section of the current spec text: no external party has been audited against it, no level has been issued, and there is no public conformance test suite yet.

Bronze
  • Read CSG-1003 packages
  • Preserve field IDs end-to-end
  • No-double-ask honored

Funder reading inbound packages.

Silver
  • Bronze, plus:
  • Produce a valid §2 core + the §4 blocks your branch pulls in
  • Emit Field 77 + at least one product branch

Broker / ISO submitting outbound.

Gold
  • Silver, plus:
  • Every product branch your appetite covers implemented
  • Catch-all handoff + no-double-ask both enforced

Lender platforms with multi-product appetite.

Certified
  • Gold, plus:
  • Three-surface parity suite green (gate is wired; the suite is not written yet)
  • Reconciled usage records, signed FCRA disclosures, capability audit log

The reference-implementation bar. Nobody holds it yet, including us.

Implement

Take the spec. Build against it.

CSG-1003 is a protocol, not a product. A competing reference implementation against the same spec is welcomed — that's how standards stay honest. Today the spec text and the field manifest go out on request; there is no public conformance suite to run against yet, and we would rather say so than imply one exists.

See the Schema Reference Request the spec