Civic Interconnect P-Tag Schemas

This repository provides JSON Schemas for machine-readable provenance tags ("PTags") used across Civic Interconnect.

• ptag.core.schema.json - minimal, PROV-aligned schema for software, tools, and specs
• ptag.civic-data.schema.json - adds civic-data attributes for datasets and apps
• ptag.privacy.schema.json - see https://github.com/civic-interconnect/civic-transparency-ptag-spec for earlier draft

Unversioned URIs

• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/civic-interconnect/civic-ptag-core-schema/main/schema/ptag.core.schema.json
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/civic-interconnect/civic-ptag-core-schema/main/schema/ptag.civic-data.schema.json
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/civic-interconnect/civic-ptag-core-schema/main/schema/ptag.privacy.schema.json

Versioning

• publish component tag like ptag-core@1.0.0
• publish component tag like ptag-civic-data@1.0.0

Reference them from repos via:

• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/civic-interconnect/civic-ptag-core-schema/ptag-core@1.0.0/schema/ptag.core.schema.json
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/civic-interconnect/civic-ptag-core-schema/ptag-civic-data@1.0.0/schema/ptag.civic-data.schema.json

Local Validation

Required: Node.js (v24).

Open Git Bash / bash / zsh terminal:

npx ajv-cli validate --spec=draft2020 -s schema/ptag.core.schema.json  -d examples/core-lib_ptag.json

npx ajv-cli validate --spec=draft2020 -r schema/ptag.core.schema.json -s schema/ptag.civic-data.schema.json -d examples/civic-data_dataset_ptag.json

npx ajv-cli validate --spec=draft2020 --strict=false -s schema/ptag.privacy.schema.json -d examples/privacy_ptag.json

Reuse of Core Schema

Currently, only the civic-data profile formally extends the core schema via $ref.

The ptag.privacy.schema.json profile is intentionally independent. While ptag.core and ptag.civic-data describe full PROV-structured provenance graphs, the privacy profile defines a small, flat set of bucketed, non-PII attributes intended for per-post tagging. Requiring it to extend the core schema would force all privacy tags into full PROV graph structures (prefix, entity, activity, wasGeneratedBy, etc.), making them heavier and harder to adopt in platform-level pipelines. Keeping the privacy profile standalone provides:

• a simple, embeddable JSON object for social-post metadata
• no required PROV boilerplate