dpcs 0.2.0

Reference implementation of the Data Pipeline Contract Standard (DPCS)
Documentation

DPCS

Reference implementation of the Data Pipeline Contract Standard (DPCS).

dpcs is a Rust-first toolkit for parsing, inspecting, and validating portable, contract-first data pipeline definitions. The full specification lives in SPEC.md and is the authoritative source of truth.

DPCS Document -> Parser -> Canonical Object Model -> Validator -> Diagnostics

Orchestrator binding, execution runtimes, and Airflow/Dagster/Prefect generation are intentionally out of scope until roadmap 0.8.0. See ROADMAP.md.

Status

Item Value
Crate version 0.2.0
Spec version 1.0.0-draft
Language Rust 2021 (MSRV 1.85)
License Apache-2.0 OR MIT
Release focus Canonical Object Model (SPEC Ch 1–4)

Quick start

Install

cargo install --path .
# or, after crates.io publish:
# cargo install dpcs --version 0.2.0

Validate a pipeline contract

dpcs validate examples/minimal.dpcs.yaml
dpcs validate examples/minimal.dpcs.yaml --json
dpcs validate examples/minimal.dpcs.yaml --strict

Inspect and explore

dpcs inspect examples/minimal.dpcs.yaml
dpcs diagnostics examples/minimal.dpcs.yaml --json
dpcs graph examples/minimal.dpcs.yaml
dpcs version

Exit codes

Code Meaning
0 Valid
1 Validation errors
2 Parse or I/O failure

Library usage

use dpcs::{parse_yaml_file, validate};

fn main() -> dpcs::Result<()> {
    let contract = parse_yaml_file("pipeline.dpcs.yaml")?;
    let report = validate(&contract);

    if report.is_valid() {
        println!("contract `{}` is valid", contract.id);
    } else {
        for diagnostic in &report.diagnostics {
            eprintln!("{}: {}", diagnostic.id, diagnostic.message);
        }
    }

    Ok(())
}

Object-oriented style:

use dpcs::PipelineContract;

let contract = PipelineContract::from_yaml_file("pipeline.dpcs.yaml")?;
let report = contract.validate();
assert!(report.is_valid());

Repository layout

.
├── SPEC.md                 # Authoritative DPCS specification
├── ROADMAP.md              # Release plan
├── src/
│   ├── model/              # Canonical Object Model
│   ├── parser/             # YAML and JSON parsers
│   ├── validation/         # Phase-based validation
│   ├── diagnostics/        # Deterministic diagnostics
│   ├── plan/               # Pipeline Plan skeleton
│   ├── capabilities/       # Capability model skeleton
│   ├── binding/            # Binding placeholder (future)
│   └── cli/                # CLI implementation
├── examples/               # Example contracts
├── tests/fixtures/         # Valid and invalid fixtures
├── docs/                   # Design and contributor guides
└── adr/                    # Architecture decision records

Development

cargo fmt
cargo clippy --all-targets --all-features -- -D warnings
cargo test --all-features
cargo build --release

Useful docs:

Design principles

  • SPEC.md is authoritative. Implementation follows the specification, not the other way around.
  • Contract-first. Pipelines are portable declarations, not engine-specific DAGs.
  • Deterministic diagnostics. Validation returns structured findings, never panics on invalid input.
  • Incremental delivery. Each 0.x release completes a coherent slice of the roadmap.

Relationship to ODCS and DTCS

ODCS  -> what data is
DTCS  -> how data changes
DPCS  -> how transformations compose into pipelines

DPCS references ODCS and DTCS artifacts through contract references. It does not re-implement those standards.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md and ROADMAP.md.

License

Licensed under either of:

at your option.