1.0.0-beta.5 children

[moradology]

In the upcoming (1.0.0-beta.5) release of stac-spec, a few new conformance classes will be added. Among them is an extension which will add a /children endpoint. Quoting the tentative stac-spec document,
"A STAC API Landing Page (a Catalog) can return information about the Catalog and Collection child objects it contains using the link relation children to an endpoint /children. The purpose of this endpoint is to present a single resource from which clients can retrieve all the immediate child objects of a Catalog, which may be Catalog or Collection objects. The child link relations in a Catalog already allow for describing these relationships, but require a client to retrieve each resource URL to find any information about the children (e.g., title, description), which can cause significant performance issues in user-facing applications."
More, here: https://github.com/radiantearth/stac-api-spec/blob/5a694d5daf838e5edb974a2e7fdfa59547435340/children/README.md

[jonhealy1]

@moradology Does this mean that there will now need to be a /catalogs route? Every catalog now is a separate api instance I think - is this changing? This may not be as complicated as it seems ...

[moradology]

This new conformance class should be read as only an extension to core and is not required to host a valid STAC API which advertises the core but not the children conformance class. Each catalog can still be treated as a separate API instance but, assuming this extension is implemented, those catalogs with other catalogs immediately under them can be expected to advertise said sub-catalogs and any subordinate collections at a new <super-catalog>/children endpoint

Let me know if I've misunderstood your question. I have often found these detailed spec discussions difficult!

[jonhealy1]

@moradology Ok I think I understand what you are saying. Right now a root catalog is created automatically and child links are added by calling the /collections route. Someone would need to be able to inject catalog links in to the root catalog? A root catalog would have to be told what catalogs exist underneath it or would those catalogs only be displayed in the /children endpoint? I think it's a good idea.