YAML
YAML Ain't Markup Language
Judgement: Adopt
Default surface for config and contract specs.
Human-readable data serialisation format. The default surface for metadata, configuration, and contract specifications — Kubernetes manifests, CI/CD pipelines, OpenAPI / AsyncAPI / ODCS / DPDS / dbt project files all live in YAML.
Why this is listed as niche
Strictly speaking a metadata and configuration format — rarely used to encode the data itself; its role is describing data, not carrying it. Listed because most schema and contract specs in this landscape (OpenAPI, AsyncAPI, ODCS, DPDS, dbt project files) are authored in YAML.
At a glance
- Category
- File Formats
- Governance
- yaml.org / community spec
- Status
- Stable; v1.2.2 (2021)
- First released
- 2001
Links
Related standards
Other standards in File Formats.
- AVRO — Apache Avro
- CSV — Comma-Separated Values (RFC 4180)
- JSON — JavaScript Object Notation
- PARQUET — Apache Parquet
- XML — Extensible Markup Language
- ORC — Apache ORC (Optimized Row Columnar)
- Lance
See YAML in context
Open the interactive Data Landscape to compare YAML against every other open standard, or grab the raw JSON. Spotted something wrong? Open an issue.