cv.json exists because your resume gets read by software before a human ever sees it, and most resume formats were built for the human, not the software. cv.json is the open, MIT-licensed standard for publishing a CV as one machine-readable JSON file at a stable URL, so AI recruiters, ATS and agents read it directly while people still get a beautifully designed page. One source, two audiences, always in sync.
The problem it solves
A PDF is a picture of your career. A parser has to reverse-engineer the data back out of it, and that is where good candidates get silently dropped. Re-uploading the same file to every portal makes it worse: versions drift, formatting breaks, and the machine guesses. cv.json removes the guessing. Every skill, role and date sits in a named field a machine already understands.
Who builds it
cv.json is built and maintained by FreeCV, the free AI CV builder used by job seekers in more than 180 countries. The standard itself is open and MIT-licensed. No single company owns it, and no platform owns your data. FreeCV maintains the reference implementation, but anyone can read the spec, fork it, or build their own tools on top.
How it is governed
The spec, the JSON Schema, and a validator live in the open on GitHub. The current stable version is 1.2, read from meta.version and the X-CV-Version header. Field names stay compatible with JSON Resume where it makes sense, so migrating is painless and the existing developer ecosystem carries over.
What a cv.json holds
The format covers basics, work, education, skills, projects, languages, certificates, an availability block for hiring signals like open-to-work and visa needs, and a meta block for version and canonical URL. Only basics and meta are required. Consumers ignore fields they do not recognize, so the standard grows without breaking older readers.
How it works in practice
You create a cv.json free at freecv.org/builder. It publishes to a stable link such as livelink.cv/ashley, which renders as a clean page for humans. Add .json and the very same source returns structured data for machines, discoverable through a <link rel="alternate"> tag, a /.well-known/cv.json manifest, and open CORS.
What we believe
- Open beats locked. MIT-licensed, forkable, no platform tax on your career data.
- One source of truth. Edit once, every reader sees it, humans and machines alike.
- Private by default. You decide what is public, down to the field.
- Built for both readers. A page that reads beautifully and a feed that parses perfectly.
Get involved
Read the spec, open an issue or pull request, implement cv.json in your own product, or just publish your own file. The standard gets stronger every time another tool can read it. Start by creating your cv.json free or reading the spec on GitHub.