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Using the Ontologies

The ontologies are published with stable W3ID IRIs and mirrored locally under artifacts/.

W3ID Basics

W3ID provides persistent identifiers that redirect to the current location of the ontology files. Use W3ID IRIs in your data and contexts, not raw GitHub URLs.

Example patterns:

  • ENVITED-X: https://w3id.org/ascs-ev/envited-x/{domain}/{version}
  • Gaia-X4PLC-AAD: https://w3id.org/gaia-x4plcaad/ontologies/{domain}/{version}
  • Gaia-X development: https://w3id.org/gaia-x/development

Files You Will Use

  • *.owl.ttl defines the ontology vocabulary
  • *.shacl.ttl defines validation constraints
  • *.context.jsonld provides JSON-LD prefixes and mappings
  1. Choose the ontology version from docs/registry.json.
  2. Use the W3ID IRI in your @context and @type values.
  3. Validate data with SHACL shapes before publishing.

Local Development

For local development, the validator resolves W3ID IRIs using the XML catalogs. You do not need network access to validate data.