CTF-ICF — declination of CTF for the International Coaching Federation

Status: working-draft (see status.md) Source federation: International Coaching Federation (ICF) Reference document: ICF AI Coaching Framework and Standards, V1.01 (2024) Pathway: community-led (drafted by community members; subject to ICF validation before promotion to endorsed)

Plain-language summary

A declination is an adapted version of CTF that integrates the specific requirements of a professional federation. CTF-ICF is the declination that combines CTF’s generic common core with the operational expectations of the ICF AI Coaching Framework and Standards.

This declination is currently a working draft. It has been initiated by the CTF community as a starting point that the International Coaching Federation can review, adjust, and validate. Until ICF has reviewed and approved this declination, its status remains working-draft, and platforms implementing it should clearly state this provisional status in their conformance declarations.

For the full taxonomy of declination statuses, see ../README.md.

Repository layout for this declination

ctf-icf/
├── README.md                 ← this document
├── status.md                 ← current status and history
└── source-material/          ← raw, pre-declination work
    └── README.md             ← what belongs here

A future, fully-formed declination will additionally contain a declination/ folder with the structured CTF-style normative document (one file per CTF section, mapped onto ICF’s sections A–F).

How this declination is being produced

The declination is being drafted through the community pathway documented in ../../certification-scheme/community-pathway.md.

The work proceeds in three phases:

1. Source material assembly — collect all relevant ICF normative content, prior translation work, and operational examples in source-material/. This is where pre-existing layer-by-layer material from the founder’s earlier CTF iteration lives, pending integration into the structured declination format.
2. Structured drafting — using the CTF Translator helper agent, produce a structured CTF-style declination from the source material. Each CTF section is mapped onto the corresponding ICF sections, with explicit citation.
3. Federation validation — once the structured draft is mature, submit to ICF for review. ICF either endorses, asks for revisions, or co-authors a federation-led version.

Provisional adoption

A platform may implement this declination at working-draft status if it explicitly states the status in its self-declaration. Working-draft adoption is a contribution to the maturation of the declination — feedback from real implementations is part of how the draft becomes ready for federation review.

Once ICF has reviewed and validated, the status moves to endorsed (ICF approves the community draft as-is) or co-maintained (ICF and the community jointly maintain) or federation-authored (ICF takes over and co-authors a definitive version). Each of these transitions is documented in status.md and announced in the project changelog.

License

This declination is published under CC BY-SA 4.0, like the rest of the CTF repository. The underlying ICF normative material remains the property of the International Coaching Federation and is referenced rather than reproduced. Where a CTF-ICF requirement directly maps onto an ICF clause, the citation is explicit and the reproduction stays within the limits of fair use; the canonical ICF document remains the authoritative source.

Contact

Questions about this declination can be sent to the CTF caretaker at maxime@simplex.coach.

For ICF-side questions about the framework being declined, please refer directly to the International Coaching Federation.