Sprogdata

Sprogdata is a term used in software development to describe a self-describing data artifact that combines metadata about a program with its associated payload. In practice, a sprogdata artifact is a structured container intended to be portable, reproducible, and easy to audit, often used to bundle a script or binary together with its configuration and provenance information.

A typical sprogdata container includes metadata fields such as an identifier, name, version, programming language or runtime, entry point or main script, creation timestamp, author or organization, license, and a list of dependencies. The payload portion can consist of source code, compiled binaries, or executable scripts, along with resource files. Provenance information may record the build environment, toolchain versions, cryptographic hashes of the contents, and optional digital signatures to verify integrity and authorship. Files are commonly serialized in JSON, YAML, or XML and are sometimes compressed for transport.

Use cases for sprogdata include packaging software for embedded systems, educational tools, and research experiments where reproducibility is important. By tying code, configuration, and provenance into a single artifact, sprogdata supports auditing, version control, and deployment workflows. It often interacts with related concepts such as manifests, software bill of materials, and deployment descriptors, serving as a compact alternative or complement to separate metadata and packaging files.

The term’s origin is informal and varies by community; it has not been standardized across industries. See also: data serialization, manifest, SBOM, and software packaging formats.