Conformance.

Three grades, and a floor

ULC has three conformance grades, Core, Standard, and Full. Each adds a deeper class of evidence than the one below, and a record earns the highest one its data fully supports.

Core

The entry grade: the minimum a fixture must carry to be specified and ordered at all. Mandatory product data (identity, classification, the headline photometric and electrical values, one-line colorimetry), an attached cutsheet, and a recognized safety listing. It sits below the selection-grade data and the accredited test evidence the higher grades add.

Standard

Core plus the full LM-79 selection-grade specification: maximum intensity, symmetry and coordinate system, materials, test conditions, an LM-79 attestation, a lumen-maintenance framework, and the conditional rows the fixture's form calls for. This is the data a Division 26 lighting specification selects products on, which is why it ranks above Core. A Standard record is missing only the accredited third-party test evidence that lifts it to Full.

Full

Everything: Standard plus the independently-certified characterization an accredited test report supplies. Zonal lumens, an operating point, measurement uncertainty, applied corrections, instrumentation depth, a method-backed lumen-maintenance projection, and, for white-light fixtures, TM-30 color detail.

Below the grades sits the floor, Incomplete: where a record sits until it meets Core. Not a grade. A single missing Core requirement holds it here, even one that already carries Standard- or Full-grade data elsewhere. The tooling never refuses it: a record with nothing but its identity still grades Incomplete, and always carries a roadmap to Core. Identity is the one thing a record must carry to exist at all (manufacturer, catalog model, and family id); a record without it is malformed, not Incomplete.

Grading is a cumulative gate: a record earns a grade only when it meets every applicable requirement of that grade and of the grades below it. Every requirement still outstanding, at every grade up to Full, becomes a roadmap entry naming the field, its source document, and the governing standard. Beside those hard gaps, the validator also suggests a non-gating enrichment roadmap: optional depth (power factor, flicker, alpha-opic metrics, UGR, and similar) that deepens a datasheet but never moves the grade.

These cut points are not arbitrary. They recover how a Division 26 construction specification (the CSI MasterFormat division that governs electrical and lighting work) escalates the evidence it demands of a manufacturer as the specification tightens. Two axes order the ladder. Evidence depth: each grade asks for a deeper class of characterization, which is why Full sits above the datasheet-grade Standard band. Conditional applicability: a specification asks for a metric only when the fixture's form calls for it, the rule the next section makes concrete.

A conformance level is a data-completeness grade, never a safety certification: the Core safety-listing gate checks that a listing claim is present, not that a third party has verified it.

Graded only on what applies

A requirement only counts when it applies to the fixture's form. When it does not, it is dropped from grading entirely, never counted as missing. That is what keeps the grade fair: a fixture is measured only against what a specifier would actually ask of that kind of fixture.

• An indoor fixture is never asked for a BUG rating or an IP rating. Those are outdoor metrics; their absence never lowers its level.
• A color-mixing RGBW fixture is never asked for a single CRI figure. It is specified by its color gamut, not one number measured against a reference white.
• A DALI, DMX, or wireless fixture is never asked for an analog dimming range. Its dimming is commanded externally and is not printed on the cutsheet.
• An architectural uplight (in-ground or facade) is graded on its beam, not on an area distribution it does not have.
• An exit sign is graded against the sign profile: legend, illumination mode, battery, and UL 924 evidence, never the LM-79 photometry its spec sheet does not carry. A dedicated emergency luminaire keeps the normal profile minus luminaire efficacy, plus the emergency gates.

The class profiles take this rule to its conclusion. The product class is derived from the record's primary category: an exit sign grades against the sign dataset (the architectural photometric rows are dropped entirely, and Full is anchored on UL 924 test-report depth), and a dedicated emergency luminaire grades against the normal profile minus luminaire efficacy, plus the emergency gates. A UL 924 listing, read from the attestation ledger and never a boolean field, satisfies the core safety-listing requirement. A sign-only manufacturer reaches the grade its spec sheets actually support instead of being stranded at Incomplete for lacking an LM-79 report it never produces.

So an honest datasheet is never demoted for a value its fixture has no reason to carry.

The eight reference records

The eight canonical records show grading on real cutsheets: five architectural records across the four authoring patterns, and three exit signs in the emergency product class. Each one carries the grade it earned and its roadmap to Full.

Vode is one field short of Standard. The two Lumenfacade records reach Standard with their DMX driver exempt from the analog-dimming rows, an applicability rule in action. The LPX exit sign is held at Core by two figures its spec sheet does not publish (letter height and self-powered input wattage), and the two edge-lit signs sit one tier below Full for the class-specific reason: Full asks for a test-report-backed face luminance, the UL 924 lab depth a spec sheet does not carry.

See your own roadmap