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Semantic Definition Format (SDF): Supplements
Semantic Definition Format (SDF): Supplements
draft-ietf-asdf-sdf-mapping-01
| Document | Type | Active Internet-Draft (asdf WG) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Authors | Carsten Bormann , Jan Romann | ||
| Last updated | 2026-02-18 | ||
| Replaces | draft-bormann-asdf-sdf-mapping | ||
| RFC stream | Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) | ||
| Intended RFC status | (None) | ||
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draft-ietf-asdf-sdf-mapping-01
ASDF C. Bormann, Ed.
Internet-Draft Universität Bremen TZI
Intended status: Standards Track J. Romann
Expires: 22 August 2026 Universität Bremen
18 February 2026
Semantic Definition Format (SDF): Supplements
draft-ietf-asdf-sdf-mapping-01
Abstract
The Semantic Definition Format (SDF) is a format for domain experts
to use in the creation and maintenance of data and interaction models
that describe Things, i.e., physical objects that are available for
interaction over a network. It was created as a common language for
use in the development of the One Data Model liaison organization
(OneDM) models. Tools convert this format to database formats and
other serializations as needed.
An SDF specification often needs to be augmented by additional
information that is specific to its use in a particular ecosystem or
application. SDF Supplements provide a mechanism to represent this
augmentation.
About This Document
This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.
Status information for this document may be found at
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-asdf-sdf-mapping/.
Discussion of this document takes place on the A Semantic Definition
Format for Data and Interactions of Things (asdf) Working Group
mailing list (mailto:asdf@ietf.org), which is archived at
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/asdf/. Subscribe at
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/asdf/.
Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at
https://github.com/cabo/sdf-mapping.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
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Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on 22 August 2026.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2026 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/
license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document.
Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components
extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as
described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are
provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. Terminology and Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1. Example Model 1 (ecosystem: IPSO/OMA) . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2. Example Model 2 (ecosystem: W3C WoT) . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. Formal Syntax of SDF Supplements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4. Augmentation Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.1. Logging Augmentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.1. Media Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.2. Registries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
7. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
7.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
7.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
List of Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
List of Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
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1. Introduction
The Semantic Definition Format (SDF) is a format for domain experts
to use in the creation and maintenance of data and interaction models
that describe Things, i.e., physical objects that are available for
interaction over a network. It was created as a common language for
use in the development of the One Data Model liaison organization
(OneDM) models. Tools convert this format to database formats and
other serializations as needed.
An SDF specification often needs to be augmented by additional
information that is specific to its use in a particular ecosystem or
application. SDF Supplements provide a mechanism to represent this
augmentation.
// In this revision, we have renamed the map quality to amend since
// the underlying data structure changed from an object to an array.
// For this reason, we also change the term "Mapping File" to
// "Supplement" to also reflect the fact that the file does not
// actually contain a _map_ for describing the augmentation anymore.
1.1. Terminology and Conventions
The definitions of [I-D.ietf-asdf-sdf] apply.
The term "byte" is used in its now-customary sense as a synonym for
"octet".
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
"OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
[BCP14] (RFC2119) (RFC8174) when, and only when, they appear in all
capitals, as shown here.
2. Overview
An SDF Supplement provides augmentation information for one or more
SDF models. Its main contents are an array of patches that are
applied using SDF name references (Section 4.3 of
[I-D.ietf-asdf-sdf]) as the respective target.
When processing the Supplement together with one or more SDF models,
the qualities from the array elements are added to the SDF model at
the referenced name, as in a merge-patch operation [RFC7396]. Note
that this is somewhat similar to the way sdfRef (Section 4.4 of
[I-D.ietf-asdf-sdf]) works, but in a Supplement the arrows point in
the inverse direction (from the augmenter to the augmented).
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The order of the application of patches is that of the elements
within the array (which is deterministic in contrast to the order of
entries of an object).
2.1. Example Model 1 (ecosystem: IPSO/OMA)
An example for an SDF Supplement is given in Figure 1. This
Supplement is meant to attach to an SDF specification published by
OneDM, and to add qualities relevant to the IPSO/OMA ecosystem.
// Note that this example uses namespaces to identify elements of
// the referenced specification(s), but has un-namespaced quality
// names. These two kinds of namespaces are unrelated in SDF, and a
// more robust example may need to make use of Quality Name Prefixes
// as defined in Section 2.3.3-3 of [I-D.ietf-asdf-sdf] (independent
// of a potential feature to add namespace references to definitions
// that are not intended to go into the default namespace — these are
// SDF definition namespaces and not quality namespaces, which are
// one meta-level higher).
* Start of a Supplement for certain OneDM playground models:
{
"info": {
"title": "IPSO ID mapping"
},
"namespace": {
"onedm": "https://onedm.org/models"
},
"defaultNamespace": "onedm",
"amend": [
{
"#/sdfObject/Digital_Input": {
"id": 3200
}
},
{
"#/sdfObject/Digital_Input/sdfProperty/Digital_Input_State": {
"id": 5500
}
},
{
"#/sdfObject/Digital_Input/sdfProperty/Digital_Input_Counter": {
"id": 5501
}
}
]
}
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Figure 1: A simple example of an SDF Supplement
2.2. Example Model 2 (ecosystem: W3C WoT)
This example shows a translation of a hypothetical W3C WoT Thing
Model (as defined in Section 10 of [W3C.wot-thing-description11])
into an SDF model plus a Supplement to catch Thing Model attributes
that don't currently have SDF qualities defined (namely, titles and
descriptions members used for internationalization).
A second Supplement is more experimental in that it captures
information that is actually instance-specific, in this case a forms
member that binds the status property to an instance-specific CoAP
resource.
// Namespaces are all wrong in this example.
The form really should be part of the class level; defining the
entire form instead of just the link in the instance information is a
symptom of not yet getting the class/instance boundary right.
* The input: WoT Thing Model
{
"@context": "https://www.w3.org/2022/wot/td/v1.1",
"@type" : "tm:ThingModel",
"title": "Lamp Thing Model",
"titles": {
"en": "Lamp Thing Model",
"de": "Thing Model für eine Lampe"
},
"properties": {
"status": {
"description": "Current status of the lamp",
"descriptions": {
"en": "Current status of the lamp",
"de": "Aktueller Status der Lampe"
},
"type": "string",
"readOnly": true,
"forms": [
{
"href": "coap://example.org/status"
}
]
}
}
}
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Figure 2: Input: WoT Thing Model
* The output: SDF model
{
"info": {
"title": "Lamp Thing Model"
},
"namespace": {
"wot": "http://www.w3.org/ns/td"
},
"defaultNamespace": "wot",
"sdfObject": {
"LampThingModel": {
"label": "Lamp Thing Model",
"sdfProperty": {
"status": {
"description": "Current status of the lamp",
"writable": false,
"type": "string"
}
}
}
}
}
Figure 3: Output 1: SDF Model
* The other output: SDF Supplement for class information
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{
"info": {
"title": "Lamp Thing Model: WoT TM mapping"
},
"namespace": {
"wot": "http://www.w3.org/ns/td"
},
"defaultNamespace": "wot",
"amend": [
{
"#/sdfObject/LampThingModel": {
"titles": {
"en": "Lamp Thing Model",
"de": "Thing Model für eine Lampe"
}
}
},
{
"#/sdfObject/LampThingModel/sdfProperty/status": {
"descriptions": {
"en": "Current status of the lamp",
"de": "Aktueller Status der Lampe"
}
}
}
]
}
Figure 4: Output 2: SDF Supplement
* A third output: SDF Supplement for Protocol Bindings
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{
"info": {
"title": "Lamp Thing Model: WoT TM Protocol Binding"
},
"namespace": {
"wot": "http://www.w3.org/ns/td"
},
"defaultNamespace": "wot",
"amend": [
{
"#/sdfObject/LampThingModel/sdfProperty/status": {
"descriptions": [
{
"href": "coap://example.org/status"
}
]
}
}
]
}
Figure 5: Output 3: SDF Supplement for Protocol Bindings
3. Formal Syntax of SDF Supplements
An SDF Supplement has three optional components that are taken
unchanged from SDF: The info block, the namespace declaration, and
the default namespace. The mandatory fourth component, the amend
block, contains the list of amendments that are supposed to be
applied to the target model, using an SDF name reference (usually a
namespace and a JSON pointer) as the target to which a specified
quality is applied to.
Figure 6 describes the syntax of SDF Supplements using CDDL
[RFC8610].
start = sdf-mapping
sdf-mapping = {
; info will be required in most process policies
? info: sdfinfo
? namespace: named<text>
? defaultNamespace: text
amend: [ * amendments ]
}
amendments = {
+ global-sdf-pointer => additionalqualities,
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}
; we can't really be much more specific here:
additionalqualities = named<any>
; --------------------------------- import from SDF-base:
sdfinfo = {
? title: text
? description: text
? version: text
? copyright: text
? license: text
? modified: modified-date-time
? features: [
* (any .feature "feature-name") ; EXTENSION-POINT
]
optional-comment
EXTENSION-POINT<"info-ext">
}
; Shortcut for a map that gives names to instances of X
; (has keys of type text and values of type X)
named<X> = { * text => X }
; EXTENSION-POINT is only used in framework syntax
EXTENSION-POINT<f> = ( * (quality-name .feature f) => any )
quality-name = text .regexp "([a-z][a-z0-9]*:)?[a-z$][A-Za-z$0-9]*"
; rough CURIE or JSON Pointer syntax:
global-sdf-pointer = text .regexp ".*[:#].*"
optional-comment = (
? $comment: text ; source code comments only, no semantics
)
modified-date-time = text .abnf modified-dt-abnf
modified-dt-abnf = "modified-dt" .det rfc3339z
; RFC 3339 sans time-numoffset, slightly condensed
rfc3339z = '
date-fullyear = 4DIGIT
date-month = 2DIGIT ; 01-12
date-mday = 2DIGIT ; 01-28, 01-29, 01-30, 01-31 based on
; month/year
time-hour = 2DIGIT ; 00-23
time-minute = 2DIGIT ; 00-59
time-second = 2DIGIT ; 00-58, 00-59, 00-60 based on leap sec
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; rules
time-secfrac = "." 1*DIGIT
DIGIT = %x30-39 ; 0-9
partial-time = time-hour ":" time-minute ":" time-second
[time-secfrac]
full-date = date-fullyear "-" date-month "-" date-mday
modified-dt = full-date ["T" partial-time "Z"]
'
Figure 6: CDDL definition of SDF Supplements
The JSON pointer that is used a the target can point to a JSON map in
the SDF model to be augmented by adding or replacing map entries. If
necessary, the JSON map is created at the position indicated with the
contents of the patch
// (add examples). Alternatively, the JSON pointer can point to an
array (also possibly created if not existing before) and add an
element to that array by using the "-" syntax introduced in the
penultimate paragraph of Section 4 of [RFC6901].
4. Augmentation Mechanism
An SDF model and a compatible Supplement can be combined to create an
_augmented_ SDF model. (This process can be repeated with multiple
Supplements by using the outcome of one augmentation as the input of
the next one.) As augmentation is not equal to instantiation,
augmented SDF models are still abstract in nature, but are enriched
with ecosystem-specific information.
| Note that it might be necessary to specify an augmentation
| mechanism for instance descriptions as well at a later point in
| time, once it has been decided what the instance description
| format might look like and whether such a format is needed.
The augmentation mechanism is related to the resolution mechanism
defined in Section 4.4 of [I-D.ietf-asdf-sdf], but fundamentally
different:
Instead of a model file reaching out to other model files and
integrating aspects into itself via sdfRef (_pull_ approach), the
Supplement _pushes_ information into a new copy of a specific given
SDF model. The original SDF model does not need to know which
Supplements it will be used with and can be used with several such
Supplements independently of each other.
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An augmented SDF model is produced from two inputs: An SDF model and
a compatible Supplement, i.e. every JSON pointer key within elements
of the amend array points to a location that already exists within
the SDF model or has been created by a previous augmentation step.
To perform the augmentation, a processor needs to create a copy of
the original SDF model. It then iterates over all entries within the
Supplement's amend array elements. During each iteration, the
processor first obtains a reference to the target referred to by the
JSON pointer in the respective key. This reference is then used as
the Target argument of the JSON Merge Patch algorithm [RFC7396] and
the entry's value as the Patch argument; the target is replaced with
the result of the merge-patch.
Once the iteration has finished, the processor returns the resulting
augmented SDF model. Should the resolution of a JSON pointer or an
application of the JSON Merge Patch algorithm fail, an error is
thrown instead.
An example for an augmented SDF model can be seen in Figure 7. This
is the result of applying the WoT-specific Supplement from Figure 4
to the SDF model shown in Figure 3. This augmented SDF model is one
step away from being converted to a WoT Thing Model or Thing
Description, which requires some information that cannot be provided
in an SDF model that is limited to the vocabulary defined in the SDF
base specification.
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{
"info": {
"title": "Lamp Thing Model"
},
"namespace": {
"wot": "http://www.w3.org/ns/td"
},
"defaultNamespace": "wot",
"sdfObject": {
"LampThingModel": {
"label": "Lamp Thing Model",
"titles": {
"en": "Lamp Thing Model",
"de": "Thing Model für eine Lampe"
},
"sdfProperty": {
"status": {
"description": "Current status of the lamp",
"descriptions": {
"en": "Current status of the lamp",
"de": "Aktueller Status der Lampe"
},
"writable": false,
"type": "string"
}
}
}
}
}
Figure 7: An SDF model that has been augmented with WoT-specific
vocabulary.
| Since the pair of an SDF model and a Supplement is equivalent
| in semantics to the augmented model created from the two, there
| is no fundamental difference between specifying aspects in the
| SDF model or leaving them in a Supplement. Also, parts of an
| ecosystem-specific vocabulary may in fact be mappable to the
| SDF base vocabulary. Therefore, developing the mapping between
| SDF and an ecosystem requires careful consideration which of
| the features should be available to other ecosystems and
| therefore should best be part of the common SDF model, and
| which are best handled in a Supplement specific to the
| ecosystem.
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4.1. Logging Augmentation
Since an augmented model is not fundamentally different from any
other SDF model, it may be necessary to trace the provenance of the
information that flowed into it, e.g., in the info block. For this
purpose, a new quality called augmentationLog is introduced that
contains an array of URIs pointing to the Supplements that have been
used to augment the original SDF file (which can also be indicated
via the originalSdfModel quality). These additional qualities allow
for reproducing the augmentation process.
For logging while performing an augmentation, the processor has to
perform the following steps:
1. If the info block is not present in the model that is being
augmented, the processor creates it.
2. If the info block does not contain an augmentationLog quality,
the processor performs the following steps:
1. If the originalSdfModel quality is not present in the info
block, the processor adds it with a URI that can be used to
access the SDF model that is currently being augmented as its
value.
2. The processor creates the augmentationLog quality with an
array containing URIs that can be used to access the current
Supplement as its sole item.
3. Otherwise, if augmentationLog does not contain an array, stop and
throw an error.
4. Otherwise, the processor adds a URI that can be used to access
the current Supplement to the array of the augmentationLog
quality.
{
"info": {
"title": "Augmented SDF model with augmentation log.",
"augmentationLog": [
"https://example.org/sdf-mapping-file-1",
"https://example.org/sdf-mapping-file-2"
],
"originalSdfModel": "https://example.org/original-sdf-model"
}
}
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Figure 8: An augmented SDF model with an augmentation log and
information regarding the original SDF model.
5. IANA Considerations
5.1. Media Type
IANA is requested to add the following Media-Type to the "Media
Types" registry.
+==================+=================================+=============+
| Name | Template | Reference |
+==================+=================================+=============+
| sdf-mapping+json | application/sdf-supplement+json | RFC XXXX, |
| | | Section 5.1 |
+------------------+---------------------------------+-------------+
Table 1: A media type for SDF Supplements
// RFC Editor: please replace RFC XXXX with this RFC number and
// remove this note.
Type name: application
Subtype name: sdf-mapping+json
Required parameters: none
Optional parameters: none
Encoding considerations: binary (JSON is UTF-8-encoded text)
Security considerations: Section 6 of RFC XXXX
Interoperability considerations: none
Published specification: Section 5.1 of RFC XXXX
Applications that use this media type: Tools for data and
interaction modeling that describes Things, i.e., physical objects
that are available for interaction over a network
Fragment identifier considerations: A JSON Pointer fragment
identifier may be used, as defined in Section 6 of [RFC6901].
Person & email address to contact for further information: ASDF WG
mailing list (asdf@ietf.org), or IETF Applications and Real-Time
Area (art@ietf.org)
Intended usage: COMMON
Restrictions on usage: none
Author/Change controller: IETF
Provisional registration: no
5.2. Registries
(TBD: After any future additions, check if we need any.)
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6. Security Considerations
Some wider issues are discussed in [RFC8576].
(Specifics: TBD.)
7. References
7.1. Normative References
[BCP14] Best Current Practice 14,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp14>.
At the time of writing, this BCP comprises the following:
Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.
[I-D.ietf-asdf-sdf]
Koster, M., Bormann, C., and A. Keränen, "Semantic
Definition Format (SDF) for Data and Interactions of
Things", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-
asdf-sdf-25, 13 October 2025,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-asdf-
sdf-25>.
[RFC6901] Bryan, P., Ed., Zyp, K., and M. Nottingham, Ed.,
"JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) Pointer", RFC 6901,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6901, April 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6901>.
[RFC7396] Hoffman, P. and J. Snell, "JSON Merge Patch", RFC 7396,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7396, October 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7396>.
[RFC8610] Birkholz, H., Vigano, C., and C. Bormann, "Concise Data
Definition Language (CDDL): A Notational Convention to
Express Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR) and
JSON Data Structures", RFC 8610, DOI 10.17487/RFC8610,
June 2019, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8610>.
7.2. Informative References
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[RFC8576] Garcia-Morchon, O., Kumar, S., and M. Sethi, "Internet of
Things (IoT) Security: State of the Art and Challenges",
RFC 8576, DOI 10.17487/RFC8576, April 2019,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8576>.
[W3C.wot-thing-description11]
"Web of Things (WoT) Thing Description 1.1", W3C REC wot-
thing-description11, W3C wot-thing-description11,
<https://www.w3.org/TR/wot-thing-description11/>.
List of Figures
Figure 1: A simple example of an SDF Supplement
Figure 2: Input: WoT Thing Model
Figure 3: Output 1: SDF Model
Figure 4: Output 2: SDF Supplement
Figure 5: Output 3: SDF Supplement for Protocol Bindings
Figure 6: CDDL definition of SDF Supplements
Figure 7: An SDF model that has been augmented with WoT-specific
vocabulary.
List of Tables
Table 1: A media type for SDF Supplements
Acknowledgements
This draft is based on discussions in the Thing-to-Thing Research
Group (T2TRG) and the SDF working group. Input for Section 2.1 was
provided by Ari Keränen.
Authors' Addresses
Carsten Bormann (editor)
Universität Bremen TZI
Postfach 330440
D-28359 Bremen
Germany
Phone: +49-421-218-63921
Email: cabo@tzi.org
Jan Romann
Universität Bremen
Germany
Email: jan.romann@uni-bremen.de
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