---
title: "Freshness"
type: "glossary-term"
category: "Corpus & data pipeline"
canonical_url: "https://www.graphcanon.com/glossary/corpus-and-data/freshness"
updated: "2026-07-09"
---

# Freshness

_Also known as: Staleness_

**Freshness is how recently a record was updated. Stale data is the opposite - old enough that it may no longer reflect reality.**

**Freshness** describes how current a piece of data is, usually expressed as a last-updated timestamp. **Staleness** is the inverse: data that has not been refreshed recently and may have drifted from the truth.

Freshness matters most for fast-moving facts. Star counts and maintenance status age quickly; a definition ages slowly.

## In GraphCanon

Pages show when their facts were last synced, and structured data carries dates so both search engines and agents can weigh how current a claim is.

## See also

- [How trust signals work](/trust-methodology)

## Related terms

- [GitHub sync](/glossary/corpus-and-data/github-sync.md)
- [Provenance](/glossary/knowledge-graph/provenance.md)

[Corpus & data pipeline](/glossary/corpus-and-data.md) · [All glossary terms](/glossary.md)

---

**Machine-readable endpoints**

- JSON: [`/api/graphcanon`](/api/graphcanon)
- LLM index: [/llms.txt](/llms.txt)
- Full corpus: [/llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt)

_GraphCanon - The knowledge graph for AI development. https://www.graphcanon.com/_