Operator Guide

June 2, 2026 · View on GitHub

Configuration and runtime tuning for operators of the Federated Catalogue.

For the architectural and conceptual description of the service, see the Architecture Document.

Keycloak Realm Configuration

The Keycloak realm name is configurable via the KEYCLOAK_REALM environment variable.

Property	Env var	Default	Description
`keycloak.realm`	`KEYCLOAK_REALM`	`federated-catalogue-realm`	Realm name the application authenticates against.

The same variable is honored by fc-service-server, fc-demo-portal, docker-compose.yml, the Helm chart (keycloak.realm value), and the manual Kubernetes manifests under deployment/manual/.

Fresh deployment (default)

The bundled realm import files define a realm named federated-catalogue-realm:

keycloak/realms/{dev,staging,prod}/fc-realm.json — imported by the docker-compose stack
deployment/helm/fc-service/fc-realm.json — imported by the Helm chart's Keycloak ConfigMap

No further action is required.

Existing deployment with a legacy `gaia-x` realm

Set KEYCLOAK_REALM=gaia-x. Keycloak's --import-realm is a no-op once the realm already exists in the database, so deployments with a pre-existing gaia-x realm keep working without migration. No bundled JSON ships for this case; bring your own import file if you also need to provision the realm fresh.

Helm

keycloak:
  realm: federated-catalogue-realm   # set to "gaia-x" for legacy
  realmFile: fc-realm.json           # bring your own JSON if you need a legacy import

Trust Framework Configuration

The Federated Catalogue activates trust frameworks via a list of trust-framework family IDs. Families listed at startup are flipped to enabled=true in the persistence store; unlisted families remain disabled. Runtime changes go through the trust-framework admin API.

Configuration

Property	Type / format	Default	Description
`federated-catalogue.enabled-trust-frameworks`	comma-separated family-ID list	`""`	Families to enable at startup. Empty = none enabled. Unknown IDs are logged and ignored.

Environment-variable form: FEDERATED_CATALOGUE_ENABLED_TRUST_FRAMEWORKS.

Example Configuration (application.yml)

federated-catalogue:
  enabled-trust-frameworks: "gaia-x"

Or via environment:

FEDERATED_CATALOGUE_ENABLED_TRUST_FRAMEWORKS=gaia-x

The built-in family ID for Gaia-X is gaia-x (profile gaia-x-2511). Additional families are contributed via trust-framework bundles; the admin API and the getTrustFrameworks endpoint expose the registered family IDs.

Behavior

Empty list (default): no trust-framework compliance is enforced at upload time. Signature verification still runs; any valid Verifiable Credential/Presentation can be stored.
One or more families listed: each listed family is flipped to enabled=true at startup; credentials matching that family are validated against its trust-framework bundle (compliance checks, trust-anchor registry calls, ontology/SHACL shapes).

For the architecture of the trust-framework bundle / family / profile model, see the Architecture Document.

Verification: No Forced Validation on Upload

The upload path runs no forced SHACL/JSON-Schema/XML-Schema validation and no trust-framework base-class compliance check.

Schema validation is on-demand against stored assets via POST /assets/validate (CAT-FR-CO-05): the endpoint takes asset IDs and schema IDs, validates them, and persists the validation report as triples per CAT-FR-CO-02. Operators that want to discard non-conforming uploads follow store → validate → (delete on failure); the validation report is retained as audit evidence either way.

A caller that wants the post-strategy base-class check on POST /verification must opt in explicitly with the requireBaseClass=true query parameter.

For the full set of verification toggles and the runtime OWL schema-validation module, see the Operator Wiki.

Supported Credential Formats

The Federated Catalogue accepts the following Verifiable Credential formats for submission:

Format	Encoding	Description
Gaia-X Loire JWT	VC 2.0 JWT (`typ: vc+ld+json+jwt`)	ICAM 24.07. Requires Gaia-X trust chain when `gaiax.enabled: true`.
Standard JWT-VC	VCDM 1.1 or 2.0 JWT with `vc`/`vp` wrapper claims	Compatible with Catena-X, EBSI (VCDM 1.1), and IDSA/DCP trust frameworks.

Not accepted: VC 1.1 JSON-LD with Linked Data Proof (Gaia-X Tagus / Elbe, ICAM 22.10 and earlier). These credentials use https://www.w3.org/2018/credentials/v1 as context with an embedded proof block instead of a JWT envelope. Submitting a credential in this format returns a 400 error.

Gaia-X Loire Compatibility (2511 Ontology)

The Federated Catalogue supports the current Loire (Gaia-X 2511) credential format.

Bundled Ontology and SHACL Shapes

File	Source	Purpose
`fc-service-core/src/main/resources/defaultschema/ontology/gx-2511.ttl`	Stripped from Gaia-X 2511 OWL	Class hierarchy for Loire type resolution (`rdfs:subClassOf` only)
`fc-service-core/src/main/resources/defaultschema/shacl/gx-2511-shapes.ttl`	Gaia-X Trust Shape Registry	SHACL validation shapes for Loire credentials

New submissions in Tagus credential format (VC 1.1 JSON-LD with Linked Data Proof) are not accepted and return a 400 error at format detection.

Namespace

Namespace	URI	Usage
Loire (2511)	`https://w3id.org/gaia-x/2511#`	Credential types (`gx:LegalPerson`, `gx:ServiceOffering`, etc.)

Configure type resolution and document loader in application.yml:

federated-catalogue:
  verification:
    participant:
      type: "https://w3id.org/gaia-x/2511#Participant"
    resource:
      type: "https://w3id.org/gaia-x/2511#Resource"
    service-offering:
      type: "https://w3id.org/gaia-x/2511#ServiceOffering"
    doc-loader:
      additional-context:
        '[https://w3id.org/gaia-x/2511#]': https://registry.lab.gaia-x.eu/development/context/2511

Updating the bundled ontology

To update to a future 2511 release: replace gx-2511.ttl (run fc-tools/extract-ontology-hierarchy.py against the new OWL file) and gx-2511-shapes.ttl (download from the registry), then update the doc-loader.additional-context mapping.

Asset / Credential terminology (CAT-NFR-01)

Originally developed for Gaia-X, this project used the term "Self-Description" (SD). The CAT-NFR-01 naming refactoring replaced SD with two terms:

Asset — at the API and storage layer (e.g., POST /assets, AssetStore, AssetMetadata). Covers any uploaded item: RDF credentials, PDFs, templates, binary files.
Credential — inside the verification pipeline (e.g., verifyCredential(), storeCredential(), CredentialVerificationResult). Applies only when the uploaded asset is a Verifiable Credential/Presentation ( JSON-LD).