Place up to three profiles side by side. Compare their architectural role, lifecycle reach, and first limitation to test. No single standard covers every layer.
Working set
Choose profiles
1 of 3 selected
01
BeaconStandard
Decision lens
Compare roles before choosing an implementation.
The useful question is not “Which standard wins?” It is “Which job must this part of the architecture perform, and what remains uncovered?”
01
Start with the job
Decide whether you need guidance, a domain payload, exchange, semantics, governance, or a reusable release.
02
Map lifecycle reach
Use the matrix to see where each profile has a direct role. A filled cell is coverage, not a quality score.
03
Test the boundary
Read what each option leaves unresolved before judging maturity or implementation fit.
Assessment
Review lifecycle coverage and practical fit.
Read left to right. Lifecycle reach comes first; a maturity label never overrides a scope mismatch.
01 · Lifecycle reach
Where each profile contributes directly
Coverage shows a recorded role at that readiness stage. It does not imply end-to-end implementation.
No direct role is recorded for Plan, Acquire, Harmonize.
Known limitation
Beacon is a discovery protocol, not a complete authorization, consent, or privacy guarantee. Record-level and count responses can disclose sensitive information, and local schemas, filters, and handovers can still diverge.
03 · Detailed assessment
Check the fit and source behind the map
Use the official source, version, and limitation together. A higher maturity label does not erase a scope mismatch.
Federated queries across genomic variants and related individuals, biosamples, cohorts, runs, analyses, filters, result granularity, and handover links.
Best fitPrivacy-aware discovery of relevant genomic and biomedical datasets before a researcher begins a separate authorization and access process.
Readiness stages
ExchangeLearn + reuse
AI-ready contribution
Supports machine-driven cohort and dataset discovery, while returned matches do not by themselves establish access rights, harmonized records, cohort comparability, or fitness for training.
First limitation to test
Beacon is a discovery protocol, not a complete authorization, consent, or privacy guarantee. Record-level and count responses can disclose sensitive information, and local schemas, filters, and handovers can still diverge.
Maturity
Scaling
Current v2 ecosystem with multiple implementations; v2.0 remains the last version recorded as PDAP-approved by GA4GH