SHACL
Shapes Constraint Language
Situational
Formal standard
W3C
Since 2017
Judgement: Situational
Validate RDF; only when you already speak RDF.
W3C language for validating RDF graphs against a set of conditions — the JSON Schema of the RDF world.
Used heavily where the semantic stack actually has to enforce rules, not just describe them.
At a glance
- Category
- Semantics
- Governance
- W3C
- Status
- Stable since 2017 (1.0); SHACL 1.2 in progress (FPWDs published 2025)
- First released
- 2017
Links
Related standards
Other standards in Semantics.
- DCAT — Data Catalog Vocabulary
- JSON-LD — JSON for Linking Data
- RDF/OWL — Resource Description Framework / Web Ontology Language
- SKOS — Simple Knowledge Organization System
- OSI — Open Semantic Interchange
- schema.org — schema.org vocabulary
- ShEx — Shape Expressions Language
See SHACL in context
Open the interactive Data Landscape to compare SHACL against every other open standard, or grab the raw JSON. Spotted something wrong? Open an issue.