rsm-schema

This project defines the Research Software Management (RSM) Metadata Schema and its Python representation.

The package includes:

• the JSON Schema itself

• generated Pydantic v2 models for validating RSM documents

• a small inspection API for traversing the JSON Schema

        flowchart LR
    S["rsm.schema.json<br/>source of truth"]
    S -->|datamodel-code-generator| G["rsm_schema.generated<br/>Pydantic v2 models"]
    S -->|loaded at import| I["rsm_schema.inspector<br/>Schema / SchemaNode"]
    S -->|copied by the docs build| P["published at the $id URL"]
    

Start here

• API reference — validate documents and inspect the schema from Python.

• Schema workflow — change, generate, test, archive, and publish the contract.

Package layers

Layer	Purpose
rsm_schema.schema	The bundled JSON Schema file, also published at its $id URL
rsm_schema.inspector	Traversal, JSON Pointer lookup, local $ref resolution, schema validation
rsm_schema.generated	Pydantic v2 classes generated from the same JSON Schema

Install

pip install rsm-schema

Python 3.14 is required.

Validate a document

RSMMetadata is the document root. Only project_slug is required; every other property either defaults to an empty container or is left unset.

from rsm_schema import RSMMetadata, validate_document

document = {
    "project_slug": "my-project",
    "project_name": "My Project",
    "development_status": "wip",
    "topics": {
        "entries": [
            {
                "term": "Data analysis",
                "uri": "https://edamontology.org/topic_3474",
            }
        ]
    },
    "contributors": {
        "entries": [
            {
                "name": "Ada Lovelace",
                "email": "ada@example.org",
                "roles": ["Original author", "Maintainer"],
                "affiliations": [
                    {"name": "Leiden University Medical Center"},
                    {"name": "Leiden University"},
                ],
            }
        ]
    },
}

validate_document(document)
metadata = RSMMetadata.model_validate(document)

print(metadata.contributors.entries[0].affiliations[0].name)
print(metadata.topics.entries[0].term)

validate_document() is the authoritative validation path and enforces JSON Schema conditionals that generated Pydantic models cannot represent.

Inspect the schema

from rsm_schema import schema

schema.validate_schema()
print(schema.title)

for field in schema.root.properties:
    print(field.name, field.types, field.required)

person = schema.definition("person")
print([field.name for field in person.properties])