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
• Shape Discovery Tools and Collections
• Shape Convertors and Generators
• Shape-based Query Generators
• Shape Editors, Visualizations
• Declarative UIs
• IDE support
• Books
• Tutorials
• Talks and Presentations
• Specifications

SHACL Validators

Software tools or libraries, sorted by programming language.

• 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; Apache-2.0 license; Java.
  • EU Interoperability Test Bed (ITB) - Playground based on TopBraid SHACL API, docs: validate RDF data, SHACL shapes, DCAT-AP.DE.
  • Sparna SHACL playground - Free online suite of tools to work with SHACL; based on TopBraid SHACL API; Java.
• SHACL eXtended (SHACL-X) - extension of the TopBraid SHACL API - Supports what TopBraid SHACL API supports + SHACL JavaScript Extensions (SHACL-JS), SHACL Python Extensions (SHACL-Py); based on Jena; docs; Apache-2.0 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, Experimental SHACL 1.2 support (shacl-engine experimental); 15-26x faster than other JavaScript or Python packages (blog post, real-world examples); works on data provided as RDF/JS objects; MIT license; JavaScript.
  • playground and playground experimental - 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 with Python bindings. But SHACL is not open source: lib/shacl/src/lib.rs says unimplemented!("Contact Data Treehouse to try") 💰.

• rudof - Implements ShEx, SHACL, DCTAP, and other technologies in the RDF ecosystem; library and CLI; Apache and MIT licenses; Rust with Python bindings. docs.
• pySHACL - pySHACL: A Python validator for SHACL. One of the most comprehensive SHACL implementations. Uses RDFLib for working with RDF and OWL-RL library for OWL2 RL Profile-based expansion of data graphs; Apache license; Python.
• xpshacl - xpSHACL: Explainable SHACL Validation. Combining rule-based justification trees with retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and large language models (LLMs) to produce detailed, understandable, multi-language explanations. MIT license. Python

ShEx Validators

Software tools or libraries, sorted by programming language.

• 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)

• rudof - Implements ShEx, SHACL, DCTAP, and other technologies in the RDF ecosystem; library and CLI; Apache and MIT licenses; Rust with Python bindings. docs.

Shape Discovery Tools and Collections

• RDFminer - Discover SHACL shapes representative of an RDF data graph, by Wimmics; CECILL-C license; Java.
• SHACL Discovery Service - 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.
• SHACL Play! Catalog - To see your shapes listed here, add them in the Shapes Catalog source file on GitHub.
• schema.org Shapes - Schema.org, converted to SHACL by TopQuadrant.
• Europarl Shapes - Application profiles for European Parliament & all related dataset-specific profiles.

Shape Convertors and Generators

Also see Polyglot Modeling tools (issue in the YAML-LD project). Sometimes called SchemaOps; the name "schema salad" is used sometimes ;-)

• 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.
• shapiro - SHACL to JSON-Schema, HTML.

• rudof - Converts between different RDF Data modeling technologies: SHACL, SHEX, DCTAP, UML diagrams, HTML documentation. docs.
• SHACL Play! JSON-LD context - SHACL-to-JSON-LD context generator; Java.
• SHACL Play! Converter - Converts between RDF schema formats. Has OWL-to-SHACL (open, semi-closed, closed).
• owl2shacl - OWL-to-SHACL conversion rules.
• elevont/owl2shacl - A CLI tool that tries to convert simple OWL ontologies into SHACL shapes; AGPL-3.0 license; rust.
• LinkML (GitHub and more repos) - Input is YAML; output is SHACL, ShEx, JSON Schema, JSON-LD context and instances, SPARQL, OWL, GraphQL, Pydantic Python, ProtoBuf, various documentation formats; Apache license Python.
• TNO Semantic Treehouse - Has SHACL input and output. Used as a Vocabulary Hub in dataspaces.
• TopQuadrant: OWL Axioms to SHACL Constraints - Commercial, closed-source solution 💰.
• Ontotext SOML - Input is YAML, output is GraphQL schema with querying and mutations, SHACL shapes for validation. Commercial, closed-source 💰.

Shape-based Query Generators

• shape-to-query - Generate SPARQL queries from SHACL Shapes; docs; MIT license; Typescript.
  • playground
• SHACL Play! SPARQL - Generates SPARQL queries to extract RDF subset based on SHACL specification of the target dataset.

Shape Editors, Visualizations

• Allotrope Shape Editor - The Shape Editor supports editing of shacl and shaclc files; Apache-2.0 license; Java.
• SHACL Play! Tools - Edit & visualize SHACL; LGPL-3.0 license license; Java.
  • SHACL in Excel - A SHACL editor from Excel.
  • SHACL to Documentation - A documentation generator to print an application profile specified in SHACL.
  • SHACL to UML Diagrams - A diagram generator to display an application profile specified in SHACL.

Declarative UIs

Data viewers/Editors based on shapes.

• shaperone - SHACL Shapes Form generator; docs; MIT license; Typescript.
  • playground
• Sparnatural - Visual knowledge graph explorer with SPARQL, in the browser, configurable with SHACL; docs; LGPL-3.0 license license; Typescript.
• shacl-form (ULB Darmstadt) - HTML5 Web Component SHACL form generator library; docs; MIT license; Typescript.
  • playground
• shacl-forms (Zazuko) - A Web Component SHACL form generator library; unknown license; JavaScript ☠️.
• form-generator (RWTH Aachen) - A Vue SHACL form generator library; MIT license; Typescript.
• shacl-form (Daniel Beeke) - A custom element SHACL form generator library; docs; MIT license; Typescript ☠️.

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.
• SHACLC Language Server (source) - A VS Code extension providing language intelligence (diagnostics, hover tooltips, auto-completion, etc.) for CG standard SHACL Compact Syntax via the Language Server Protocol. MIT License.
• RDF and SPARQL - IntelliJ plugin with editor support for ShEx Compact syntax and SHACL validation.

Books

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

Tutorials

• Shapes applications and tools: ISWC'20 Tutorial - Main tutorial.
• neonto Academy 💰 - Online academy with interactive programming tasks for SHACL and other semantic web standards

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.
  • Data Shapes Working Group - Re-chartered from Dec 2024 to Dec 2026 to update the specs. Join

• 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 next@1.0.2, 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.

Footnotes

Legend:

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