entitiesinx

entitiesinx is a framework and ecosystem designed for entity-centric data interoperability across heterogeneous information sources. It provides a common model and tooling for representing, linking, disambiguating, and enriching information about real-world entities such as people, organizations, places, and events.

The core concept is the entity node, identified by a persistent ixid. Relationships, called inx edges, connect entities to attributes, sources, and contextual signals. The model emphasizes provenance, versioning, and cross-domain disambiguation to maintain a coherent view of an entity as it appears in different datasets.

Data is ingested into the platform via connectors, with canonicalization and record linkage performed to resolve synonyms and duplicates. A modular graph storage layer supports both property graphs and RDF-like representations, enabling flexible querying and reasoning. A reference implementation and schemas are provided under open licenses.

Historically, entitiesinx originated as an open-standard project in the late 2010s, driven by a community of data engineers, librarians, and researchers seeking an interoperable entity layer for knowledge graphs. It has since matured into a multi-language toolkit with community contributions and reference datasets.

Common use cases include search enrichment, where disambiguated entities improve results; knowledge graph construction and maintenance; data integration across departmental silos; and compliance and audit by recording provenance of entity data.

Critics note challenges around scalability for very large graphs, privacy concerns when linking personal data, and the need for careful governance to avoid inconsistencies across sources. Interoperability with existing standards remains a focus for ongoing development.

See also: knowledge graph, entity resolution, data provenance, link data.