Technical area
Data contracts
Specify fields, units, identity and compatibility before a feed reaches research.
Data contractsData contractsData contractsData contracts
Design a normalized record without erasing provider meaning
Specify a small shared observation contract while retaining the provider fields needed to interpret units, periods, availability and revisions.
Parse numbers only after specifying their units
Handle numeric strings, finite values, percentage scales and magnitude conversions with explicit, testable transformation rules.
Keep zero, null, absence and request failure distinct
Build missingness policies that preserve the difference between unavailable observations, malformed records and failed retrievals.
Version the meaning of a schema, not only its field names
Classify integration changes by their effect on consumers and test migrations against preserved fixtures and semantic expectations.