Conformance

How a file conforms to ASB Schema, how to validate each artifact, and the identifiers and versions the format uses.

Minimal conformance

An output conforms when it contains:

1. a task_card.json that validates against ASBTaskCard;
2. a ro-crate-metadata.json that conforms to RO-Crate 1.1.

Capsules, skill bundles, skill collections and traces are optional extensions. RO-Crate 1.1 requires a root Dataset whose @id ends with / and a root datePublished; the conformsTo of the metadata descriptor is a versioned permalink of the specification¹. Whether "validates against ASBTaskCard" reads closed or open is listed under open decisions; a card that passes linkml-validate meets both readings.

Validation

Each artifact is validated against its own LinkML file. Slot names are global in LinkML, so loading the umbrella asb.yaml merges colliding slot definitions (for example, ASBTaskCard.skills and tools become optional); asb.yaml is therefore not a validation entry point.

Artifact	Schema file	Target class	Path
Task card	asb_card.yaml	ASBTaskCard	get_schema_path('asb_card')
Capsule	asb_capsule.yaml	SciTaskCapsule	get_schema_path('asb_capsule')
Skill bundle, skill, tool	asb_skill_bundle.yaml	SkillBundle, ASBSkill, ASBTool	get_schema_path('asb_skill_bundle')
Skill collection	asb_skill_collection.yaml	SkillCollection	get_schema_path('asb_skill_collection')
Collection registry	asb_skill_collection_registry.yaml	SkillCollectionRegistry	get_schema_path('asb_skill_collection_registry')
Exploration trace	asb_trace.yaml	ExplorationTree	importlib.resources.files("asb_schema") / "asb_trace.yaml"

SCHEMA=$(python -c "from asb_schema import get_schema_path; print(get_schema_path('asb_card'))")
linkml-validate --schema "$SCHEMA" --target-class ASBTaskCard task_card.json
# No issues found

With release 0.4.0, 405 of the 417 cards of the staged v1 collections of asb-skill-collections pass this command; the other 12 carry two legacy evaluation_strategy keys.

Stage	Tool	Checks	Undeclared keys
LinkML validation	linkml-validate --target-class <Class>	Required slots, ranges, patterns, enumerations	Rejected
Closed JSON Schema	Any draft 2019-09 validator, target $defs/<Class>	Required slots and types	Rejected
Open JSON Schema	Same file, its root	Top-level slots of the root class; nested classes closed	Accepted at the top level
RO-Crate	rocrate-validator2	RO-Crate 1.1 to 1.3 and the Workflow RO-Crate profiles	Not applicable
Collection release gates	.github/workflows/validate.yml of asb-skill-collections	Each collection.yaml closed against SkillCollection; capsule crates against RO-Crate 1.1	Rejected

linkml-validate chooses its loader by file extension, so a .jsonld file is validated under a .json name. SciTaskCapsule and SkillBundle model directories; for a capsule, the card inside is validated against ASBTaskCard and the crate with RO-Crate tooling. Runtime files of the reference pipeline (eval.json, rubric.json, build_manifest.json, released SKILL.md leaves and tools/*.yaml) are described on How the artifacts are produced and have no class in the package.

JSON Schema roots

Each generated JSON Schema file holds every class under $defs, each closed (additionalProperties: false) except the free-form JsonObject and Any. The root of each file is open and is one class:

File	Root	Validate against
asb_card.schema.json	ASBTaskCard	the root (open) or $defs/ASBTaskCard (closed)
asb_capsule.schema.json	ASBTaskCard	$defs/SciTaskCapsule
asb_skill_bundle.schema.json	SkillBundle	the root or $defs/SkillBundle
asb_skill_collection.schema.json	SkillBundle	$defs/SkillCollection
asb_skill_collection_registry.schema.json	SkillBundle	$defs/SkillCollectionRegistry
asb_trace.schema.json	an object without properties	$defs/ExplorationTree

A pointer to the class selects it:

import json, yaml, jsonschema
from asb_schema import get_json_schema_path

schema = json.load(open(get_json_schema_path("asb_skill_collection")))
target = {"$schema": schema["$schema"], "$ref": "#/$defs/SkillCollection", "$defs": schema["$defs"]}
manifest = yaml.safe_load(open("collection.yaml"))
jsonschema.Draft201909Validator(target).validate(manifest)

get_json_schema_path accepts the same five names as get_schema_path.

JSON-LD context

The package ships context.jsonld, generated from asb_skill_bundle.yaml by the LinkML JSON-LD context generator³ and loaded with asb_schema.get_jsonld_context_path(). It declares eleven prefixes, sets @vocab to https://w3id.org/holobiomicslab/asb-schema/ and defines 56 terms (49 slots, 7 classes); slots whose range is a class carry "@type": "@id".

import json
from asb_schema import get_jsonld_context_path

with open(get_jsonld_context_path()) as handle:
    context = json.load(handle)["@context"]
print(context["@vocab"])
# https://w3id.org/holobiomicslab/asb-schema/

The context covers skill-bundle terms. Released collection manifests embed their own @context, with @vocab set to schema.org and asb: bound to https://w3id.org/holobiomicslab/asb-skill/; SkillCollection admits it through jsonld_context. One context per schema file can be generated with the same command.

Identifiers and namespaces

Prefix	IRI	Used for
asb:	https://w3id.org/holobiomicslab/asb-schema/	Schema ids, class and slot IRIs, @vocab of context.jsonld
none	https://w3id.org/holobiomicslab/asb-schema/card/v0.3	id of asb_card.yaml; the other files follow the pattern <kind>/vX.Y
asbskill:	https://w3id.org/holobiomicslab/asb-skill/	Skills and collections; bound to asb: in released manifests
none	https://w3id.org/holobiomicslab/asb-skill/collection/<slug>/v<N>	iri of a collection release; resolves to the release directory
none	https://w3id.org/holobiomicslab/asb-skill/registry	@id of the collection registry; resolves to catalogue.jsonld
none	https://w3id.org/holobiomicslab/asb-tool/<slug>	Tool IRIs named in slot descriptions
asb: in claim records	https://w3id.org/asb#	Claim vocabulary of the reference pipeline

A prefix label expands from the context of the document that uses it. The rules are kept in the w3id.org repository⁴.

Capsule crates name their nodes urn:asb:<kind>:<key> with the kinds task, tool, input, output, claim, result, researcher, library, locator, evaluation and article, and fragments urn:asb:{task_id}#figure-{n} and urn:asb:{task_id}#table-{page}-{index}. These are local names; asb is not a registered URN namespace⁵. A task node is unique within one paper, and its sameAs https://doi.org/{doi}#{task_id} makes it globally unique. The package test tests/test_urn_prefix.py keeps urn:scitask out of the LinkML files.

Versions

Version	Where	Value
Package	pyproject.toml, asb_schema.__version__, CITATION.cff	0.4.0
Schema file	version: of each LinkML file	0.1.0 to 0.3.0
Schema id segment	end of each file's id	v0.1 to v0.3
Card schema_version	each task_card.json	0.18.0
Card scitask_version	each task_card.json	0.1.1
Trace schema_version	each trace	0.1.0
Collection version	collection.yaml	an integer matching v<N> of the IRI

File	id segment	version
asb.yaml	v0.2	0.2.0
asb_card.yaml	card/v0.3	0.3.0
asb_capsule.yaml	capsule/v0.2	0.1.0
asb_skill_bundle.yaml	skill-bundle/v0.2	0.2.0
asb_skill_collection.yaml	skill-collection/v0.3	0.3.0
asb_skill_collection_registry.yaml	skill-collection-registry/v0.2	0.2.0
asb_trace.yaml	trace/v0.1	0.1.0

Versioning policy

• The package follows Semantic Versioning. Before 1.0, a minor release may change a schema so that previously valid data fails; a patch release does not.
• A change to a LinkML file bumps that file's version. A change that can reject previously valid data also moves the vX.Y segment of its id.
• The generated JSON Schema files, context.jsonld and the field reference are regenerated in the same commit as the LinkML change; continuous integration fails when they differ from the generator output.
• A release is a tag v<version> on main, equal to the version in pyproject.toml, asb_schema.__version__ and CITATION.cff, with a heading in CHANGELOG.md; the publish workflow refuses any other tag.
• Each release has an entry in the changelog.

Legacy identifiers

The standard was named SciTask until 2026-05-24.

Identifier	Status
SciTaskCard, SciSkill, SciTool	Deprecated aliases of ASBTaskCard, ASBSkill, ASBTool, mapped by asb_schema.compat.legacy_class_name()
scitask_card, scitask_capsule and the other scitask_* schema names	Mapped to asb_* by asb_schema.compat.legacy_schema_name()
scitask-schema, scitask_schema	Former package and module names
SciTaskCapsule, scitask_version	Current names of the capsule class and a card slot
urn:scitask:	Former URN prefix

The asb_schema.compat functions return name strings and emit a DeprecationWarning.

---

1. Research Object Crate (RO-Crate), "Root Data Entity", RO-Crate 1.1. https://www.researchobject.org/ro-crate/specification/1.1/root-data-entity.html ↩

2. GitHub, "crs4/rocrate-validator". https://github.com/crs4/rocrate-validator ↩

3. LinkML, "JSON-LD Contexts". https://linkml.io/linkml/generators/jsonld-context.html ↩

4. perma-id/w3id.org repository, "ids/holobiomicslab/.htaccess". https://raw.githubusercontent.com/perma-id/w3id.org/master/ids/holobiomicslab/.htaccess ↩

5. IANA, "Uniform Resource Names (URN) Namespaces". https://www.iana.org/assignments/urn-namespaces/urn-namespaces.xhtml ↩