Reljeefile

Reljeefile is a hypothetical, plain-text manifest format used to describe relational datasets and their interdependencies within the fictional Relje software ecosystem. Designed for clarity and automation, reljeefile files accompany data pipelines, processing jobs, and deployment configurations, enabling consistent sharing of metadata about sources, relations, and resources across tools.

The format is intended to be human-readable and machine-parseable. It typically employs an indentation-based, key-value syntax similar to YAML or TOML and organizes information under a small set of top-level fields: name, version, description, dependencies, relations, and resources. Values may be strings, lists, or nested objects describing subcomponents. The design emphasizes explicit relations and provenance to support reproducibility.

Core concepts include dependencies (other reljeefiles or datasets required to run a component), relations (directed links between entities, such as input data feeds and downstream processors), and resources (files, URLs, licenses, or data schemas). Optional metadata can capture authorship, timestamps, provenance, and validity checks.

An illustrative reljeefile might declare a dataset named 'customer-contacts,' version '1.2.0,' with a description, a dependency on 'shared-schema,' and a relation tagged 'input-of' to a pipeline named 'contact-cleanse.' It could also list resources like a repository URL and a data license.

As a fictional construct, reljeefile has no official specification. It serves as a model for expressing data lineage and pipeline topology, and any real-world tooling would typically implement export or conversion to widely used formats such as JSON or YAML.

Origin and status: developed for explanatory purposes in this article and envisioned as part of a broader Relje ecosystem.