RDF Graphs from SHACL
Business
Opinion
KnowledgeGraphs
Let’s generate data from SHAL.
Most SHACL usage runs one direction: take data, validate against constraints (shapes). RDFGraphGen inverts it. Feed it a SHACL shapes file, and it generates synthetic RDF graphs that conform to those constraints. Useful for benchmarking, testing, and quality control when you don’t have a real dataset of the right shape and size yet.
The detail worth reflecting: a shapes graph isn’t just a validator, it’s a generative specification. If your constraints are precise enough to reject bad data, they’re precise enough to produce plausible data. That’s a different relationship between schema and instance than most pipelines assume.
RDFGraphGen is an open source python package, with examples built on schema.org types.