URIreliant

URIreliant refers to a design principle in web architecture and data ecosystems that centers on the consistent use of Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) to name and access resources. In URIreliant systems, resources such as data entities, concepts, and services are identified by stable URIs, and clients can retrieve representations by dereferencing those URIs over HTTP. This approach supports the goals of the semantic web by enabling machine-readable links, provenance, and interoperability across systems that understand URI semantics.

The term arose in discussions within linked data and web standards communities in the 2010s to describe a preference for exposing resources through resolvable identifiers rather than opaque endpoints. Core principles include the use of dereferenceable and persistent URIs, robust redirection and versioning strategies, and the use of content negotiation or standard representations (such as RDF, JSON-LD, or schema.org annotations) to describe resources.

Applications of URIreliant design appear in digital libraries, open data portals, government data ecosystems, and knowledge graphs, where entities are interlinked through shared identifiers. Benefits include easier data integration, clearer provenance, and resilient referencing across platforms. Critics point to challenges in maintaining URI stability at scale, governance around URI ownership, potential performance overhead, and privacy considerations when resources are easily dereferenced.

See also: linked data, URIs, dereferencing, semantic Web, persistent identifiers.