Awesome Semantic Shapes

A curated list of Semantic Shapes resources. Contributions welcome! Please, read the Contribution Guidelines first.

Semantic shapes enable you to validate RDF graphs against a set of conditions. Semantic shapes can also be viewed as a description of data graphs that satisfy these conditions. Such descriptions may be used for a variety of purposes besides validation, including user interface building, code generation, and data integration. Semantic shapes are frequently described using the SHACL or ShEx language.

Contents

• SHACL Validators
• ShEx Validators
• Shapes Discovery Tools
• Shapes Collections
• Shape Conversion Tools
• Shape Generators
• Shape-based Query Generators
• Shape Editors, Visualizations
• Declarative UIs
• IDE support
• Books
• Tutorials
• Talks and Presentations
• Specifications
• Legend

SHACL Validators

• Apache Jena SHACL - Supports SHACL Core, SHACL-SPARQL; docs; Apache-2.0 license; Java.
• RDF4J SHACL Engine - Supports SHACL Core (without some property paths, see 5.0.3 improvements), SHACL-SPARQL, incremental validation; docs; BSD-3-Clause license; Java.
• TopBraid SHACL API - Supports SHACL Core, SHACL-SPARQL, SHACL rules; based on Jena; BSD-3-Clause license; Java.
  • RDF validator - The EU Interoperability Test Bed (ITB) playground based on TQ API; validate any RDF with SHACL Shapes.
  • SHACL shapes validator - The EU Interoperability Test Bed (ITB) playgrounds based on TQ API; validate SHACL Shapes itself.
  • Sparna SHACL playground - Free online suite of tools from Sparna to work with SHACL; based on TQ API.
• TopBraid SHACL API Extended - Fork of TopBraid SHACL API + added SHACL-JS based on GraalVM Polyglot; docs; BSD-3-Clause license; Java.
• shacl-js - SHACL API; Apache license; JavaScript. Recommends migration to rdf-validate-shacl. ☠️.
  • playground - Browser-based testbed.
• rdf-validate-shacl - Supports SHACL Core; pure JavaScript validator on top of the RDFJS stack; MIT license; JavaScript.
  • playground - Browser-based testbed.
• shacl-engine - Supports SHACL Core, SHACL-SPARQL; A fast engine for data provided as RDF/JS objects; MIT license; JavaScript.
  • playground - Browser-based testbed.
  • rdf-ext-cli - Command line tool for validation. Data and shapes can be given as file, URL, or SPARQL endpoint + query.
• SHACL for Ruby - A pure-Ruby library for working with the Shape Constraint Language to validate the shape of RDF graphs; BSD-3-Clause license; Ruby.
• maplib - High-performance RDF knowledge graph construction, SHACL validation and SPARQL-based enrichment. Apache-2.0 license. Rust, Python. But SHACL is not open source yet: lib/shacl/src/lib.rs says unimplemented!("Contact Data Treehouse to try")

ShEx Validators

• Apache Jena ShEx - Supports ShEx, ShExC; not supported semantic actions, EXTERNAL; docs; Apache-2.0 license; Java.
• shexSpec/shex.js - JavaScript implementation of Shape Expressions; MIT license; JavaScript.
  • playground - Browser-based testbed.
• ShEx-validator ☠️ - Standalone Node module with a command line interface; MIT license; JavaScript. Built on top of ShExDemo
  • Validata ☠️ - Web-based UI to validate RDF against ShEx schemas; MIT license; JavaScript.
  • playground1 (HW-SWeL)
  • playground2 (W3C)

Shapes Discovery Tools

• RDFminer - Web application to automatically discover SHACL shapes representative of an RDF data graph, by Wimmics; CECILL-C license; Java.
• SHACL Discovery Service - Example implementation of a discovery service for SHACL shapes/shape groups; MIT license; PHP.
• Shapes of You index - SPARQL queries, OWL/SKOS vocabularies, SHACL/ShEx shapes, indexed from public git repositories; MIT license; Typescript, Python.

Shapes Collections

• schema.org Shapes - Schema.org, converted to SHACL by TopQuadrant.

Shape Conversion Tools

• ShacShifter ☠️ - Shape shifter from SHACL to other formats (currently RDForms); GPL-3.0 license; Python.
• SHACL To JSON Schema - SHACL-to-JSON-Schema translator; Typescript.

Shape Generators

• owl2shacl - OWL-to-SHACL conversion rules.

Shape-based Query Generators

• shape-to-query - Generate SPARQL queries from SHACL Shapes; docs; MIT license; Typescript.
  • playground

Shape Editors, Visualizations

• Allotrope Shape Editor - The Shape Editor supports editing of shacl and shaclc files; Apache-2.0 license; Java.

Declarative UIs

Data viewers/Editors based on shapes.

• shaperone - SHACL Shapes Form generator; docs; MIT license; Typescript.
  • playground

IDE support

• Linked Data Extension - VS Code Extension for editing RDF files with embedded SHACL validator and SPARQL engine.
• SHACL Language Server - A VS Code extension providing language intelligence (diagnostics, hover tooltips, auto-completion, etc.) for W3C standard SHACL via the Language Server Protocol.
• Mentor RDF for VS Code - Code editing support for RDF, RDFS, OWL, SKOS, SHACL and SPARQL.

Books

• Validating RDF Data (2018) - The SHACL and ShEx book.

Tutorials

• Shapes applications and tools: ISWC'20 Tutorial - Main tutorial.

Talks and Presentations

• The Many Shapes of SHACL by Holger Knublauch - LOTICO Talk, 18 Jun 2020.
• One Ontology, One Data Set, Multiple Shapes with SHACL by Tara Raafat - Connected Data London, 2019.
• An Overview of SHACL Shapes Constraint Language: Part 2 - TopQuadrant, 2017.
• An Overview of SHACL Shapes Constraint Language - TopQuadrant, 2017.

Specifications

• SHACL W3C Recommendations & Notes

  • Shapes Constraint Language (SHACL) - W3C Recommendation, 20 July 2017.
  • SHACL Advanced Features - W3C Working Group Note, 08 June 2017.
  • SHACL JavaScript Extensions - W3C Working Group Note, 08 June 2017.
  • SHACL Test Suite and Implementation Report - W3C Document 01 July 2019.
  • SHACL Use Cases and Requirements - W3C Working Group Note 20 July 2017.

• SHACL Community Group Latest Drafts & Notes

  • SHACL 1.2 Core
  • SHACL 1.2 SPARQL Extensions
  • SHACL Advanced Features 1.1
  • SHACL Compact Syntax
  • SHACL JavaScript Extensions

• SHACL-related specifications

  • The Shape Topologies algorithm
  • DASH Data Shapes - Platform-independent extensions of SHACL for common tasks. Stuff that could become an official standard in the future.

• ShEx

  • Shape Expressions Language 2.1 - Final Community Group Report, 8 October 2019.
  • ShEx Primer - Draft Community Group Report, 7 December 2022.
  • ShEx Text Suite and website - Version [email protected], last release 5 October 2018.
  • Recommended Practice for Standard for Shape Expression Schemas - IEEE Computer Society P3330/D3, Draft 9 October 2024. Next-version spec with EXTENDS keyword.
  • ShEx Primer - Primer with EXTENDS keyword, Draft Community Group Report 25 May 2022.

Legend

• ☠️ : Each one denotes 5 years since last update (e.g., ☠️☠️☠️ denotes 15 years).
• 💰 : Denotes closed source commercial software.