Product Packaging and Metadata
Every Product submitted to a Marketplace implementation MUST be accompanied by a computable marketplace.json metadata file with a minimal core set of common, required elements. Most others fields are optional and highly dependent on the:
- Technology standard type used by the given product
- Requirements of the Marketplace operator
- Regulatory factors and policies of stakeholder locales
This JSON metadata file is distributed alongside Product Build images to consumers or platform Agents, and is critical for marketplaces needing to:
- Render concise product labels
- Summerize policy conformance to an operator's official guidelines
- Capture software chain of custody, cryptographic signing, provenence and audit trails between and vendor and consumers.
- Detail licensing and pricing criteria, when applicable
- Determine if a Product is compatible with a particular runtime platform
- Provide remediation measures when runtime incompatibilities are detected
- Automate Product deployments in conjunction with runtime service orchestrators
JSON Examples
The below examples are not real products and are only for illustrative use on how marketplace.json metadata may be combined with known user information to improve consumer awareness of individual Products. We include them as directional guidance for implementors and product developers as a concrete starting point. For local product development and build purposes, the metadata file MUST be named marketplace.json and SHOULD be included at the root level of source code projects for compatible IDEs and editors. Marketplace operators may read a submitted marketplace.json file and merge in information with known consumer capabilities to provide a clear, objective overview of the Product and Build.
Note: While the schema permits flexible element ordering for readability, all cryptographic signatures of a marketplace.json document MUST operate on the canonical JSON form. Assure you have rendered to canonical JSON before computing any hashes!
- CDS-Hooks Product Build Example
- SMART-on-FHIR Product Build Example
- CQL Product Build Example
- Content Product Build Example
JSON Schemas
The top-level metadata schema applies at the Build level. Every Product is expected to naturally evolve across each Build. We provide the schema in computable JSON Schema format with inline documentation that can be viewed manually or by many supported editors.
Product/Build Label Visual Examples
Similarly to the JSON examples, the below images are not real products and are not part of the formal specification. They are for conceptual purposes only. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has published a conceptually similar "Health and Wellness Apps - Quality and Reliability" labeling and quality metric specification via ISO 82304-2:2021. A core difference is that the ISO label prescriptively defines how software quality is measured for purposes of "scoring" every product, wherein the below examples are intended to keep a Marketplace operator as objective as possible, provide flexibility on how measures are produced, and avoid claims as to a Product's "fitness for purpose". The below examples also use visual design cues from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) "Nutrition Facts Label". (These are not FDA products nor are they endorsed by the FDA.)
Exemplar Product Label Concept
Exemplar Build Label Concept
