PQC Transition Readiness: SQUIRL OS Position Against NISTIR 8547 Final and the Federal PQC Deadlines

Technical readiness record for the SQUIRL OS prototype stating its position against the post-quantum cryptography standards and deadlines in force as of October 30, 2026. Version 1.1. NIST published the final version of NISTIR 8547 on 2026-10-27 and withdrew the 2024 draft the same day. The headline dates held: quantum-vulnerable public-key algorithms are deprecated after 2030 and disallowed under NIST standards and guidelines after 2035. What changed is scope. The final report deprecates every approved classical strength after 2030, including P-256, P-384, RSA-3072 and Ed25519, where the draft deprecated only 112-bit parameter sets. Version 1.1 closes two CNSA 2.0 gaps identified in version 1.0. First, the signature parameter set: NSA names ML-DSA-87 at every classification level, so ML-DSA-65 does not satisfy the suite and the canonical signature is now ML-DSA-87. Second, SLH-DSA: NSA states that SLH-DSA, while hash-based, is not part of CNSA 2.0 and is not approved for any use in National Security Systems, and that the only approved hash-based options for firmware and software validation are LMS or XMSS per SP 800-208. Version 1.1 adds a full CNSA 2.0 conformance table covering AES-256, SHA-384/512, ML-KEM-1024, ML-DSA-87, LMS/XMSS, HashML-DSA and SLH-DSA. The record keeps its central distinction: correcting the approved algorithm set is not the same as re-keying running components. The remaining open items are stated explicitly, including the implementation audit, a firmware validation path, hybrid key establishment specification, and an inventory of non-migratable systems. No certification and no compliance attestation is claimed. SQUIRL OS is a prototype provided for educational and research purposes.