General
- Enable/disable features globally; toggle quick actions in the Command Palette.
Installation & Activation
Marketplace install
- Open VS Code → Extensions (Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + X).
- Search for “RDFusion” and click Install.
Install from VSIX
- Build or download
rdfusion-x.y.z.vsix. - VS Code → Extensions → ⋯ menu → Install from VSIX… → choose the file.
Activation triggers
The extension activates automatically when you open a
.ttl (Turtle) or .jsonld (JSON-LD)
file.
Requirements & Internationalization
- VS Code; Internet is recommended for remote vocabulary lookups, prefix registries, and dereferenceable vocabulary metadata.
- UI is English-only in this version.
Click the GIF to open a larger view. Use Esc to close.
Quick start
-
Create or open a
.ttlor.jsonldfile. -
Type a known prefix (e.g.,
foaf:) or start authoring a triple. Autocomplete and validation appear as you type. - Press Ctrl/Cmd + Space to force suggestions anytime.
- Open the Command Palette (Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + P) and run RDFusion commands such as Configure SHACL Selection, Show SHACL Coverage, Filter Triples, Generate VoID, or JSON-LD Compact / Expand / Flatten / Frame.
Configuration & Settings
RDFusion exposes settings in File → Preferences → Settings (search “RDFusion”) or via settings.json. Configurations are also available through the Command Palette.
Validation
- Turtle and JSON-LD: enable syntax, literal, datatype, duplicate, undefined-prefix, and IRI-scheme checks.
- SHACL: apply workspace shapes automatically, or open Configure SHACL Selection to limit validation to selected files, shapes, targets, or properties.
- Remote vocabulary typo checks: use cached vocabulary terms to warn about likely misspelled known terms.
Autocompletion
- Auto-declare prefixes: when using an undeclared prefix, add the declaration automatically.
- Suggestion Sources: choose local workspace terms, remote vocabulary terms, or both.
- Hover and completion metadata: show structured labels, definitions, IRI links, type/domain/range, selected SHACL guidance, and useful vocabulary references when available.
- Trigger Behavior: automatic or manual (Ctrl/Cmd + Space).
Performance
- Validation throttling: enable only validations you need on large files.
Configuration & Settings — GIFs
Click a GIF to open a larger view. Use ← / → to switch when
open.
Real-time Validation
As you edit, RDFusion validates Turtle and JSON-LD documents, applies enabled quality checks, and can run SHACL validation from workspace shapes. Diagnostics are shown inline in VS Code.
Live error highlighting
Syntax errors, undefined prefixes, literal/datatype issues, IRI scheme problems, duplicate triples, and selected JSON-LD structural issues are underlined as you type.
SHACL constraints
If your workspace contains SHACL shapes, RDFusion can apply them automatically. Use Configure SHACL Selection when a workspace has many shapes and you want to validate only the relevant shape files, shapes, targets, or properties. Use Show SHACL Coverage to inspect which data fields are covered by selected shapes.
Toggle & performance
Use the Command Palette or Settings to enable or disable checks. Basic parsing errors are prioritized; deeper checks run when syntax is corrected. Remote vocabulary checks are cached and best-effort.
Configurable rules
See Configuration & Settings to enable/disable validations.
Click a GIF to open a larger view. Use ← / → to switch when
open.
Example snippets (copyable)
Turtle
@prefix ex: <http://example.org/> .
@prefix foaf: <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/> .
ex:Homer a foaf:Person ;
foaf:name "Homer Simpson" ;
foaf:age 39 .
ex:Bart a foaf:Person ;
foaf:name "Bart Simpson" .
SHACL
@prefix ex: <http://example.org/> .
@prefix foaf: <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/> .
@prefix sh: <http://www.w3.org/ns/shacl#> .
@prefix xsd: <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> .
ex:PersonShape a sh:NodeShape ;
sh:targetClass foaf:Person ;
sh:property [
sh:path foaf:name ;
sh:minCount 1 ;
sh:message """At least one name is
required for a person."""@en ;
] ;
sh:property [
sh:path foaf:age ;
sh:minCount 1 ;
sh:datatype xsd:integer ;
sh:message """Age is required and
must be an integer."""@en ;
] .
Autocompletion, Hover & Prefix Management
Triggering suggestions
- Suggestions appear automatically in context; press Ctrl/Cmd + Space anytime.
-
In Turtle, typing
prefix:(e.g.,foaf:) shows terms. -
In JSON-LD, editing
@contextor a compact IRI shows terms and ensures prefixes are declared.
Local & remote sources
Terms come from open workspace files, JSON-LD contexts, known prefixes, and remote vocabularies when available. Remote vocabulary results are cached and used for suggestions, hover information, and typo warnings.
Structured hover details
Hover and completion documentation is organized into compact sections. When vocabulary metadata is available, RDFusion can show the term label, clickable IRI, definition, type, domain, range, subclass or subproperty relations, inverse/equivalent terms, status, selected SHACL guidance, and useful references. Missing fields are simply omitted to avoid noisy output.
Suggestions in Turtle and JSON-LD
Suggestions are context-aware in Turtle triples, prefix
declarations, JSON-LD compact IRIs, and JSON-LD
@context mappings.
Auto-declare prefix
Accepting a completion for an undeclared prefix auto-adds
@prefix (Turtle) or a context entry (JSON-LD).
Refactor JSON-LD CURIEs
Compact IRIs across your JSON-LD file. The refactor updates
@context and rewrites matches.
Configurable behavior
Disable remote lookups when offline, adjust auto-declare options, and choose whether local or remote suggestions are used.
Three flows: Turtle completion, JSON-LD completion, and
JSON-LD IRI compaction.
Example snippets (copyable)
Turtle
@prefix ex: <http://example.org/> .
@prefix foaf: <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/> .
ex:Homer a foaf:Person ;
foaf:name "Homer Simpson" ;
foaf:age 39 .
JSON-LD
{
"@context": {
"ex": "http://example.org/",
"foaf": "http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/"
},
"@id": "ex:Homer",
"@type": "foaf:Person",
"foaf:name": "Homer Simpson",
"foaf:age": 39
}
JSON-LD Processing
RDFusion provides JSON-LD commands for common processing tasks. These commands operate on the current JSON-LD document and open the result in VS Code for inspection or reuse.
Compact, expand, flatten, and frame
- Expand JSON-LD: expands compact terms into full IRI-based JSON-LD structures.
- Compact JSON-LD: uses a context to produce a shorter, term-based JSON-LD representation.
- Flatten JSON-LD: rewrites the graph into a flatter node-oriented structure.
- Frame JSON-LD From Template: applies a JSON-LD frame to shape the output around the resources you want to inspect.
Scope: JSON-LD validation and context-aware
editing are covered by validation and autocomplete. This section
is only about JSON-LD processing commands.
Triple Management
Triple Management commands help inspect, organize, compare, and reuse RDF files without leaving VS Code. Turtle-specific commands include formatting, grouping, sorting, RDF diff, visual IRI shortening, and Unicode escape normalization. Shared RDF commands include filtering, merging, and VoID generation.
Filter triples (by subject / predicate / object)
Use Command Palette → RDFusion: Filter Triples by … to generate a new tab containing only matching triples. Filtering can focus by subject, predicate, object, or a combined pattern.
Click to view larger. Non-destructive: your original file is
untouched.
Sort & group
Group by Subject groups triples under their subject; Sort Triples orders triples for cleaner look.
Format Turtle document
Use RDFusion: Turtle Formatter to apply consistent indentation, subject grouping, predicate layout, object list wrapping, known-prefix compaction, and numeric/boolean literal formatting based on your settings.
IRI shortening (compact view)
Toggle visual shortening for long IRIs (e.g.,
http://example.org/.../Concept). This improves
readability without changing file content.
Merge files
Select multiple RDF files and run RDFusion: Merge Files. The result is a single grouped Turtle document opened in a new tab.
Turtle RDF diff
Compare the current Turtle file with HEAD or a specific Git reference. The diff view compares parsed RDF triples instead of only line-by-line text changes.
Note: RDF diff is currently focused on Turtle
documents. Blank-node-heavy graphs may still require manual
review.
Dataset statistics (VoID)
Run RDFusion: Generate VoID to compute dataset-level counts such as triples, distinct subjects and objects, and classes. The result opens as a VoID Turtle description in a new tab.
Unicode escape normalization
Use Encode Turtle Unicode Escapes or Decode Turtle Unicode Escapes when you need to switch between escaped Unicode sequences and readable characters in Turtle string literals or IRIs.