Clibrarys

Clibrarys is a digital repository and discovery platform for software libraries and components. It provides a centralized catalog to help developers locate, compare, and reuse libraries across projects, with emphasis on metadata quality, licensing visibility, and provenance, and an API for automation and integration with build tools.

Originating as a community effort in the early 2010s to standardize library metadata, Clibrarys has grown into an international, volunteer-driven initiative with a rotating governance council. It is maintained under open licenses and welcomes contributions through public repositories.

Core features include a structured metadata schema, semantic versioning support, license tagging, dependency graphs, a facet-based search interface, and a RESTful API. Each entry records name, description, language, version, license, repository, docs, dependencies, compatibility notes, and provenance.

Entries are linked by a dependency graph and may include quality metrics and user annotations. Governance is open and community-driven, with mechanisms to propose schema changes, approve libraries, and address licensing concerns. The platform aims for interoperability with other registries and tooling.

Clibrarys is used by developers, researchers, and organizations to discover libraries, verify licenses, assess compatibility, and study ecosystem trends. It supplements package managers and registry services by emphasizing metadata quality and provenance, while acknowledging challenges in coverage and potential centralization.