CivicDataForge › Data › DEV publication evidence

Ask whether a DEV article is published. Get evidence—not a guess.

DEV's public article representation can omit published even for a live article. This compatibility API resolves the state from the official endpoint contract and keeps missing, explicit null, and explicit false separate in a sealed shape receipt.

Live and credential-blind. Public article checks require no account or key. The hosted API, Apify Actor, and MCP tool reject credentials instead of asking customers to trust us with them.

Use the direct API Run on Apify Connect by MCP

One request

GET https://civicdataforge-devto-evidence.neoaethel.workers.dev/v1/devto/publication-evidence?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdev.to%2Fcivicdataforge%2Fwhat-broke-when-we-turned-government-open-data-into-agent-callable-evidence-1m81

Stable states

State	Meaning
`PUBLISHED`	The official public article endpoint returned HTTP 200. This stays true even when its representation omits `published`.
`DRAFT`	Available only in the local owner verifier. The key travels directly from the owner's process to DEV and never reaches CivicDataForge.
`UNKNOWN`	The evidence cannot distinguish draft, deletion, changed identity, or an unknown article. The API does not manufacture a false answer.

Verify your private draft without giving us your key

Download the single-file Node.js verifier. It has no package dependencies, no analytics, no telemetry, no file writes, and an outbound allowlist restricted to https://dev.to/api/. The key is entered in a hidden local prompt only after a public 404.

Download local verifier SHA-256 checksum

node civicdataforge-devto-owner-verify.mjs --url "https://dev.to/yourname/your-draft-slug"

Security boundary: CivicDataForge never receives the key or private result. No software can protect a key on an already-compromised local machine, and the local result is owner diagnostic evidence rather than an independently hosted attestation.

Why the receipt matters

Every result includes observed and expected keys, missing expected keys, explicit-null keys, explicit-false keys, an endpoint-shape fingerprint, the DEV response hash, the derivation basis, and a final receipt hash. Schema drift is visible even when the upstream request succeeds.

Boundary: the hosted service does not accept credentials, modify DEV, expose private drafts, or claim DEV emitted a field it omitted. A public 404 remains UNKNOWN.

OpenAPI 3.1 · Official Forem API contract · Contact CivicDataForge