Shapes Repository

Dear Solid Community,

We would like to share a new repository - https://github.com/solid/shapes -
aimed at supporting interoperability in the Solid ecosystem.

We’d really welcome your feedback on this and the role it could play for
the community!

Primarily, this repository is designed to:

   1.

   Provide a space for the community to converge on the data models used
   across applications – declared using SHACL shapes
   2.

   Build up a collection of well-understood, reusable shape patterns
   3.

   Enable a collaborative review process where shapes can be compared and
   discussed transparently
   4.

   Support artefact generation from shapes, including object abstractions
   in Javascript <https://github.com/rdfjs/wrapper>, data validators (using
   SHACL engines), and forms <https://w3c.github.io/data-shapes/shacl12-ui/>
   .
   5.

   Offer visibility into existing shapes to encourage reuse, reduce
   duplication, contributor recognition, and help new participants get started
   more easily

We have documented an initial contribution process in the repository. In
addition, there is an important human consensus step
<https://github.com/solid/shapes/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md> that we are
still refining and would welcome feedback on
<https://github.com/solid/shapes/issues/24>.

We have pre-filled this repository with shapes that we know are already
used within the ecosystem – including shapes based on the data models used
by SolidOS. We would now like to invite you to contribute shapes,
representing the data that your Solid applications read and write - please
refer to the guidelines on contributing
<https://github.com/solid/shapes/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md>.

Note: The goal of this repository is to achieve interoperability through
social consensus rather than technical complexity, such as inference or
mappings. As the Solid ecosystem scales beyond its current size, we may
eventually deprecate this repository in favor of other mechanisms. We also
expect that this repository will, in time, evolve beyond the use of SHACL
alone – ways we imagine this could happen include:

   -

   Ontology-Driven Approach <https://github.com/solid/shapes/issues/32>:
   Moving toward a set of recommended ontologies based on actual usage. Shapes
   would still document how applications read/write data, with automated
   checks to ensure they conform to these recommended ontologies.
   -

   Consistency Checks <https://github.com/solid/shapes/issues/33>: Ensuring
   the consistency of recommended ontologies (though this may be too academic
   for practical implementation).
   -

   Foundational Ontology <https://github.com/solid/shapes/issues/34>:
   Introducing a foundational ontology (e.g., UFO) that all other ontologies
   build upon (similarly, this may be too academic for our current needs).

These are subject to change based on feedback from the repository’s usage
and other interoperability efforts.

If you have comments, we’d like to gather initial feedback asynchronously
via GitHub discussions <https://github.com/solid/shapes/discussions>. If
there’s interest in a deeper discussion, we can schedule a call or bring
this to the Community Group agenda.

Design decisions have been itemised on GitHub
<https://github.com/solid/shapes/issues?q=is%3Aissue%20label%3Adesign> and
we would encourage you to comment on individual design decisions there
rather than via the email thread.

Looking forward to your thoughts!
Best,
-- 
*Jesse Wright (he/him)*

*Project Lead, Solid
<https://theodi.org/news-and-events/news/odi-and-solid-come-together-to-give-individuals-greater-control-over-personal-data/>*
The Open Data Institute
4th Floor, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London, N1 9AG
Website: theodi.org
Book a meeting: https://calendar.app.google/hv63aFQyL6jgjiXG9
Tel: +44 7862381515
*My work day may look different than yours. Please do not feel obligated to
respond outside of your normal working hours.*