Atomic Data is a modular specification for sharing, modifying and modeling graph data. It combines the ease of use of JSON, the connectivity of RDF (linked data) and the reliability of type-safety.
Atomic Data uses links to connect pieces of data, and therefore makes it easier to connect datasets to each other - even when these datasets exist on separate machines.
AtomicServer
AtomicServer is an open source, powerful graph database + headless CMS. It's the reference implementation for the Atomic Data specification, written in Rust.
Atomic Data Core
Atomic Data has been designed with the following goals in mind:
- Give people more control over their data
- Make linked data easier to use
- Make it easier for developers to build highly interoperable apps
- Make standardization easier and cheaper
Atomic Data is Linked Data, as it is a strict subset of RDF.
It is type-safe (you know if something is a string, number, date, URL, etc.) and extensible through Atomic Schema, which means that you can re-use or define your own Classes, Properties and Datatypes.
The default serialization format for Atomic Data is JSON-AD, which is simply JSON where each key is a URL of an Atomic Property.
These Properties are responsible for setting the datatype (to ensure type-safety) and setting shortnames (which help to keep names short, for example in JSON serialization) and descriptions (which provide semantic explanations of what a property should be used for).
Read more about Atomic Data Core
Atomic Data Extended
Atomic Data Extended is a set of extra modules (on top of Atomic Data Core) that deal with data that changes over time, authentication, and authorization.
- Commits communicate state changes. These Commits are signed using cryptographic keys, which ensures that every change can be audited. Commits are also used to construct a history of versions.
- Agents are Users that enable authentication. They are Resources with their own Public and Private keys, which they use to identify themselves.
- Collections: querying, filtering, sorting and pagination.
- Paths: traverse graphs.
- Hierarchies used for authorization and keeping data organized. Similar to folder structures on file-systems.
- Invites: create new users and provide them with rights.
- WebSockets: real-time updates.
- Endpoints: provide machine-readable descriptions of web services.
- Files: upload, download and metadata for files.
Tools & libraries
- Browser app atomic-data-browser (demo on atomicdata.dev)
- Build a react app using typescript & react libraries. Start with the react template on codesandbox
- Host your own atomic-server (powers atomicdata.dev, run with
docker run -p 80:80 -v atomic-storage:/atomic-storage joepmeneer/atomic-server) - Discover the command line tool: atomic-cli (
cargo install atomic-cli) - Use the Rust library: atomic-lib
Get involved
Make sure to join our Discord if you'd like to discuss Atomic Data with others.
Status
Keep in mind that none of the Atomic Data projects has reached a v1, which means that breaking changes can happen.
Reading these docs
This is written mostly as a book, so reading it in the order of the Table of Contents will probably give you the best experience. That being said, feel free to jump around - links are often used to refer to earlier discussed concepts. If you encounter any issues while reading, please leave an issue on Github. Use the arrows on the side / bottom to go to the next page.