Metadata

Metadata in RIDDL provides supplementary information about definitions that doesn't affect the core semantics but aids documentation, organization, and tooling.

Common Metadata¶

All definitions support these metadata elements:

Brief Description¶

A short, one-line description using briefly:

entity Customer is {
  briefly "A person or organization that purchases products"
  // ...
}

Extended Description¶

Longer documentation using described by (or described as, explained by, explained as):

entity Customer is {
  described by {
    |Customers are the primary actors in our e-commerce system.
    |They can browse products, place orders, and manage their
    |account information.
  }
}

The | prefix indicates lines of documentation text (Markdown format).

Terms¶

Domain-specific terminology with definitions:

domain ECommerce is {
  term "SKU" is described by "Stock Keeping Unit - unique product identifier"
  term "Cart" is described by "Temporary collection of items before checkout"
}

Authors¶

Attribution for definitions:

author Reid is {
  name "Reid Spencer"
  email "reid@example.com"
}

domain MyDomain by author Reid is { ... }

Options¶

Options modify the behavior of definitions. Common options include:

technology("x"): Implementation technology hints
kind("x"): Classification of the definition
css("x"): Styling hints for documentation
faicon("x"): Font Awesome icon for documentation

context OrderManagement is {
  option technology("Akka")
  option kind("core")
  // ...
}

Occurs In¶

Metadata can appear in any definition, including:

Domains
Contexts
Entities
Types
All other definitions

Contains¶

Metadata does not contain other definitions; it contains:

Literal strings (descriptions, term definitions)
Options with parameters
Author references