diff --git a/docs/design/datacontracts/contract-descriptor.md b/docs/design/datacontracts/contract-descriptor.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000000..1e3ddabd6dd735
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/design/datacontracts/contract-descriptor.md
@@ -0,0 +1,100 @@
+# Contract Descriptor
+
+## Summary
+
+The [data contracts design](./datacontracts_design.md) is a mechanism that allows diagnostic tooling
+to understand the behavior of certain .NET runtime subsystems and data structures.  In a typical
+scenario, a diagnostic tool such as a debugger may have access to a target .NET process (or a memory
+dump of such a process) from which it may request to read and write certain regions of memory.
+
+This document describes a mechanism by which a diagnostic tool may acquire the following information:
+* some details about the target process' architecture
+* a collection of types and their sizes and/or the offsets of certain fields within each type
+* a collection of global values
+* a collection of /algorithmic contracts/ that are satisfied by the target process
+
+## Contract descriptor
+
+The contract descriptor consists of the follow structure.  All multi-byte values are in target architecture endianness.
+
+```c
+struct DotNetRuntimeContractDescriptor
+{
+    uint64_t magic;
+    uint32_t flags;
+    uint32_t descriptor_size;
+    const char *descriptor;
+    uint32_t aux_data_count;
+    uint32_t pad0;
+    uintptr_t *aux_data;
+};
+```
+
+The `magic` is `0x44_4e_43_43_44_41_43_00` ("DNCCDAC\0") stored using the target architecture
+endianness. This is sufficient to discover the target architecture endianness by comparing the
+value in memory to `0x44_4e_43_43_44_41_43_00` and to `0x00_43_41_44_43_43_4e_44`.
+
+The following `flags` bits are defined:
+
+| Bits 31-2 | Bit 1   | Bit 0 |
+| --------- | ------- | ----- |
+| Reserved  | ptrSize |   1   |
+
+If `ptrSize` is 0, the architecture is 64-bit.  If it is 1, the architecture is 32-bit.  The
+reserved bits should be written as zero.  Diagnostic tooling may ignore non-zero reserved bits.
+
+The `descriptor` is a pointer to a UTF-8 JSON string described in [data descriptor physical layout](./data_descriptor.md#Physical_JSON_descriptor).  The total number of bytes is given by `descriptor_size`.
+
+The auxiliary data for the JSON descriptor is stored at the location `aux_data` in `aux_data_count` pointer-sized slots.
+
+### Architecture properties
+
+Although `DotNetRuntimeContractDescriptor` contains enough information to discover the target
+architecture endianness pointer size, it is expected that in all scenarios diagnostic tooling will
+already have this information available through other channels.  Diagnostic tools may use the
+information derived from `DotNetRuntimeContractDescriptor` for validation.
+
+### Compatible contracts
+
+The `descriptor` is a JSON dictionary that is used for storing the [in-memory data descriptor](./data_descriptor.md#Physical_JSON_Descriptor)
+and the [compatible contracts](./datacontracts_design.md#Compatible_Contract).
+
+The compatible contracts are stored in the top-level key `"contracts"`.  The value will be a
+dictionary that contains each contract name as a key.  Each value is the version of the contract as
+a JSON integer constant.
+
+**Contract example**:
+
+``` jsonc
+{"Thread":1,"GCHandle":1,...}
+```
+
+**Complete in-memory data descriptor example**:
+
+``` jsonc
+{
+  "version": "0",
+  "baseline": "example-64",
+  "types":
+  {
+    "Thread": { "ThreadId": 32, "ThreadState": 0, "Next": 128 },
+    "ThreadStore": { "ThreadCount": 32, "ThreadList": 8 }
+  },
+  "globals":
+  {
+    "FEATURE_COMINTEROP": 0,
+    "s_pThreadStore": [ 0 ] // indirect from aux data offset 0
+  },
+  "contracts": {"Thread": 1, "GCHandle": 1, "ThreadStore": 1}
+}
+```
+
+## Contract symbol
+
+To aid in discovery, the contract descriptor should be exported by the module hosting the .NET
+runtime with the name `DotNetRuntimeContractDescriptor` using the C symbol naming conventions of the
+target platform.
+
+In scenarios where multiple .NET runtimes may be present in a single process, diagnostic tooling
+should look for the symbol in each loaded module to discover all the runtimes.
+
diff --git a/docs/design/datacontracts/data_descriptor.md b/docs/design/datacontracts/data_descriptor.md
index cd0d5ce92e82c5..1338e1ae87aa60 100644
--- a/docs/design/datacontracts/data_descriptor.md
+++ b/docs/design/datacontracts/data_descriptor.md
@@ -130,6 +130,10 @@ The toplevel dictionary will contain:
 * `"types": TYPES_DESCRIPTOR` see below
 * `"globals": GLOBALS_DESCRIPTOR` see below
 
+Additional toplevel keys may be present. For example, the in-memory data descriptor will contain a
+`"contracts"` key (see [contract descriptor](./contract_descriptor.md#Compatible_contracts)) for the
+set of compatible contracts.
+
 ### Baseline data descriptor identifier
 
 The in-memory descriptor may contain an optional string identifying a well-known baseline
@@ -243,9 +247,8 @@ Rationale: This allows tooling to generate the in-memory data descriptor as a si
 string.  For pointers, the address can be stored at a known offset in an in-proc
 array of pointers and the offset written into the constant JSON string.
 
-The indirection array is not part of the data descriptor spec.  It is expected that the data
-contract descriptor will include it. (The data contract descriptor must contain: the data
-descriptor, the set of compatible algorithmic contracts, the aux array of globals).
+The indirection array is not part of the data descriptor spec.  It is part of the [contract
+descriptor](./contract_descriptor.md#Contract_descriptor).
 
 
 
diff --git a/docs/design/datacontracts/datacontracts_design.md b/docs/design/datacontracts/datacontracts_design.md
index f88e0abfd06e5a..630dc9fc5639e1 100644
--- a/docs/design/datacontracts/datacontracts_design.md
+++ b/docs/design/datacontracts/datacontracts_design.md
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ Diagnostic data contract addressed these challenges by eliminating the need for
 Data contracts represent the manner in which a tool which is not the runtime can reliably understand and observe the behavior of the runtime. Contracts are defined by their documentation, and the runtime describes what contracts are applicable to understanding that runtime.
 
 ## Data Contract Descriptor
-The physical layout of this data is not defined in this document, but its practical effects are.
+The physical layout of this data is defined in [the contract descriptor](./contract_descriptor.md) doc. Its practical effects are discussed here.
 
 The Data Contract Descriptor has a set of records of the following forms.