Community Ontology Contribution

Community Ontology Contribution Skill

Goal

Place a contributor's ontology under the correct catalogue path and produce a valid, compilable community entry.

Accept only submissions that are new or materially different from existing catalogue entries and that contribute reusable community value. A good community ontology models a domain, workflow, teaching scenario, or reusable pattern that others can inspect, learn from, or adapt. Do not accept vanity-only entries, placeholder ontologies, duplicates, or profiles of a person or organization with no meaningful domain model.

CRITICAL: Directory Structure

The catalogue compiler scans exactly three levels deep:

catalogue/community/<github-username>/<slug>/

Both the <github-username> folder and the <slug> subfolder are required. Files placed directly in catalogue/community/<github-username>/ will be silently skipped by the compiler and the ontology will never appear in the catalogue.

✅ Correct

catalogue/community/jane-doe/supply-chain/
├── metadata.json
└── ontology.rdf        ← or ontology.owl

❌ Wrong — silently skipped

catalogue/community/jane-doe/
├── metadata.json       ← wrong depth
└── ontology.rdf        ← wrong depth

Step-by-Step Workflow

1. Determine the username and slug

• <github-username> — the contributor's GitHub username (lowercased, as-is)
• <slug> — short kebab-case name for this ontology (e.g. supply-chain, hr-system)

2. Create the directory

mkdir -p catalogue/community/<github-username>/<slug>/

3. Place the RDF/OWL file

Copy the file in and rename it ontology.rdf (or ontology.owl):

cp <source-file> catalogue/community/<github-username>/<slug>/ontology.rdf

4. Create metadata.json

Required fields (name, description, category) — missing any one causes a compile error:

{
  "name": "Human-Readable Ontology Name",
  "description": "One-sentence description of the domain.",
  "category": "general",
  "icon": "🏭",
  "tags": ["tag1", "tag2"],
  "author": "<github-username>"
}

category must be one of: retail | healthcare | finance | manufacturing | education | food | media | events | general | school | fibo

No extra fields are allowed (additionalProperties: false in the schema). The catalogue ID is derived from the filesystem path, so do not add an id field. The fabric_forum_user_name and author_linkedin fields are also not in the schema — omit them unless the schema is updated first.

4a. Person names in examples or sample data

If you create, repair, or normalize sample instances, examples, docs, quests, or RDF/OWL literals that need person names, first use the name-generator skill. Do not invent customer, employee, patient, student, instructor, reviewer, or other human names.

All new person names must come from the FullName column in:

data/reference/FNF-2026-06-01-01002-0268.csv

5. Validate

npm run catalogue:build

Look for:

✔ community/<slug>

If you see a compile error or the entry is absent, re-check:

• Directory depth (username folder + slug subfolder both present?)
• All three required fields in metadata.json (name, description, category)
• Valid category value
• No extra fields in metadata.json
• Whether the submission is genuinely new and useful for the wider community

6. Full build check

npm run build

Common Mistakes (from real PRs)

Done Criteria

• npm run catalogue:build outputs a successful community catalogue entry
• npm run build passes with no TypeScript or Vite errors
• Entry appears in public/catalogue.json with correct name, description, category
• source field in compiled entry is "community"
• Submission is new or materially different from existing catalogue entries
• Submission has a clear reusable domain, workflow, or teaching value
• Any person names introduced while preparing the contribution came from the name-generator skill / approved CSV fixture

Source: microsoft/Ontology-Playground — distributed by TomeVault.