SCORM, cmi5, or xAPI
What the destination LMS accepts, what reporting you need, and whether an LRS is in the picture — a decision guide, not a spec tour.
SPEC LIBRARY
Free reference, no account.
Plain-language documentation of the data models, the errors each runtime actually throws, and the behaviours real platforms disagree on. New references are added as they are finished; the changelog records what landed when.
REFERENCE
The specifications, as they behave in the field.
The SCORM 2004 data model: every cmi element, and what changed from 1.2
A working reference for the SCORM 2004 run-time: the eight API functions, every data model element with its access and type, the twenty-four error codes, the adl.nav requests, and a complete 1.2 to 2004 mapping.
Runtime behaviour profiles: what each saved test profile asserts, and why
A test profile is a saved set of LMS runtime behaviours — commit throttling, suspend-data enforcement, missing-score handling, status coercion — that the test suite replays a package against. What the dimensions are, what a pass means, and what it deliberately does not mean.
The SCORM 1.2 data model: every cmi.core element, and how runtimes differ on it
A working reference for the SCORM 1.2 run-time: the API functions, every commonly used data model element with its type, size and access, the error codes, and the places real LMSs disagree with the specification.
SCORM 2004 sequencing: rules, rollup, and the mistakes that make activities unreachable
A working reference for SCORM 2004 sequencing: the activity tree, control modes, pre- and post-condition rules, rollup, and the three authoring mistakes that strand learners — plus the 2004 run-time elements that differ from 1.2.
Suspend data limits: why courses lose bookmarks at 4 KB, and how to stay under
cmi.suspend_data is one string with a hard cap — 4,096 characters in SCORM 1.2, up to 64,000 in SCORM 2004 — and most platforms fail it silently. What the caps are per version and edition, how truncation shows up, and how to shrink what you store.
GUIDES
Decisions the references don't make for you.
Working guides live on the blog. Start with these four.
SCORM 1.2 vs SCORM 2004
Which version to build, decided by five questions about the LMS, the reporting, and how much state the course stores.
Test a package before the LMS does
The checks that catch lost completions, missing scores, and bookmark failures while they are still cheap to fix.
Why completions go missing
The full failure catalogue: exit values, mastery-score overrides, commit timing, and the fixes for each.
TOOLS
Check a real package, free.
Free SCORM tester
Upload a zip: the manifest is validated against its declared schema with plain-English errors, and the runtime call log shows every value the course reports. No account.
Runtime behaviour profiles
The saved platform behaviours the full test suite replays a package against — what each dimension asserts and what a pass means.
Changelog
What changed in the product and this library, newest first.
Start with one file.
Upload something you already have and see it as a package, with the conformance report and the runtime log alongside it.
→ upload handbook.pdf parsing … 14 sections building manifest … validating … 0 errors, 2 notes ✓ handbook-scorm2004.zip ✓ preview link ready