representationsoffer
Representationsoffer is a concept in data interoperability and API design describing a mechanism by which a resource can publicly offer multiple representations to clients. It complements content negotiation by formalizing the catalog of available encodings, schemas, and language variants that a provider can deliver for a given resource. The term is often used in documentation about service design, knowledge graphs, and distributed systems to emphasize that representation choices are negotiable rather than fixed.
In practice, a representationsoffer comprises metadata that lists the available representations, including media types, serialization formats,
Implementation approaches vary. Some systems publish a formal representation catalog or an offer graph that maps
Examples and usage. In REST APIs, representationsoffer might expose a resource with JSON, XML, and Turtle serializations.
See also content negotiation, media type, API design, semantic web, provenance, versioning.