Software CaRD Policies

This repository contains the software_card_policies Python library as well as the associated command line program sc-validate and example policies. The software was written as part of the Software CaRD project.

sc-validate

A command line program that validates a given metadata file using a set of configurable policies.

The selection of policies can be configured via config.toml. Policies can be loaded using any of the protocols supported by RDFlib's Graph.parse method (e.g. local files, http, ...). All of the given policies are loaded and unioned into one RDF graph.

Policies can be implemented in a configurable fashion by defining an sc:Parameter and using it in place of a literal or list. See description-parameterizable.ttl and licenses-parameterizable.ttl as examples. The string specified as sc:parameterConfigPath is used to look up the desired value for the parameter in the config file.

Installation

python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
python -m pip install -e .

Run

Run the program:

sc-validate examples/data/hermes.ttl

This will validate hermes.ttl using the policies defined in config.toml and print a validation report to the screen. If run in debug mode (with --debug), the report is more verbose, and the following files are written to the current working directory:

• debug-input-data.ttl: the input data
• debug-shapes-processed.ttl: the parameterized and combined policies
• debug-validation-report.ttl: the detailed SHACL validation report (sh:ValidationReport)

Conventions

All examples in this repository use the following namespace prefix bindings:

@prefix codemeta: <https://doi.org/10.5063/schema/codemeta-2.0#> .
@prefix owl: <http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#> .
@prefix rdf: <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#> .
@prefix rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .
@prefix sc: <https://schema.software-metadata.pub/software-card/2025-01-01/#> .
@prefix scex: <https://schema.software-metadata.pub/software-card/2025-01-01/examples/#> .
@prefix scimpl: <https://schema.software-metadata.pub/software-card/2025-01-01/implementation/#> .
@prefix schema: <https://schema.org/> .
@prefix sh: <http://www.w3.org/ns/shacl#> .
@prefix xsd: <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> .

For Software CaRD, the prefixes sc:, scex:, and scimpl: were established and are used for the following purposes:

• sc: contains terms exposed to users
• scex: contains example uses of sc: and sh: terms
• scimpl: contains internal implementation details

The associated IRIs currently don't exist. A search on prefix.cc reveals prior usage of the prefix sc: by projects which seem to be defunct.

Documentation

To build the documentation, install the package including the docs extra:

python -m pip install -e .[docs]

Then run Sphinx via the predefined task:

task docs-build  # build the docs
task docs-clean  # delete the built docs

To view the docs in the browser, run

python -m http.server -b 127.0.0.1 -d docs/_build/html

Then follow the link http://127.0.0.1:8000/.

Acknowledgments

Software CaRD (ZT-I-PF-3-080) is funded by the Initiative and Networking Fund of the Helmholtz Association in the framework of the Helmholtz Metadata Collaboration.