SESM Schema Reference

SESM.manifest.toml

The standard manifest. Describes SESM itself: identity, governance relationships, artifact locations, and lifecycle.

[standard]
id = "sesm"
title = "SVG Embedded Semantic Metadata"
abbreviation = "SESM"
status = "active"
maturity = "candidate"
version = "0.3.0"
description = "Governs semantic metadata embedded in SVG assets, safe-profile review, privacy/conformance framing, fixtures, and supporting validation/conversion tooling."

[governance]
meta_standard = "SFDS"
workspace_standard = "WGS"
scope = "SVG metadata structure, semantic asset records, safe-profile rules, privacy and conformance requirements, validator rules, fixture corpus, conversion support, and agent-readable visual context."
non_goals = ["General image editing", "palette contract definition", "desktop release packaging"]

[artifacts]
specification = "SESM-v0.2.md"
schema = "svg_asset.schema.json"
templates = "templates"
examples = "examples"
adoption_guide = "Adoption-Guide.md"
validation_checklist = "Validation-Checklist.md"
changelog = "CHANGELOG.md"
validators = ["tests/run_tests.py", "Embed-SESM.py", "Validate-SESM-Safe.py"]
governance_notes = [
  "Governance-Boundary.md",
  "EXPLAINER.md",
  "SAFE-PROFILE.md",
  "THREAT-MODEL.md",
  "PRIVACY.md",
  "CONFORMANCE.md",
  "SECURITY.md",
  "VALIDATOR-RULES.md",
  "REFERENCE-IMPLEMENTATION.md",
  "SUBMISSION-PITCH.md",
  "CONTRIBUTING.md",
  "CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md",
  "LICENSE"
]
reference_examples = [
  "examples/SESM-Suite-Map.md",
  "templates/SESM-Metadata-Example.json",
  "fixtures/valid/basic-safe.svg",
  "fixtures/valid/full-metadata.svg",
  "fixtures/invalid/script.svg",
  "fixtures/invalid/event-handler.svg",
  "fixtures/invalid/javascript-url.svg",
  "fixtures/invalid/duplicate-metadata.svg",
  "fixtures/invalid/bad-json.svg",
  "fixtures/warning/remote-reference.svg"
]

[adopter_artifacts]
schemas = ["svg_asset.schema.json"]
manifest_templates = []
document_templates = ["templates/SESM-Metadata-Example.json"]
legacy_project_manifests = ["references/legacy-project-manifests/SESM.project.manifest.toml"]

[lifecycle]
created = "2026-06-10"
last_updated = "2026-06-11"
maintainer = "Herb"

[agent]
read_first = ["README.md", "EXPLAINER.md", "SAFE-PROFILE.md", "THREAT-MODEL.md", "PRIVACY.md", "CONFORMANCE.md", "VALIDATOR-RULES.md", "SESM-v0.2.md", "SESM.manifest.toml"]
notes = "Existing tools and tests remain authoritative implementation evidence. SESM metadata is untrusted input and does not make arbitrary SVG safe."

Notable fields:

• [artifacts].validators — unlike WDS/DDS/ATS/AAS, SESM names its actual validator scripts and test runner directly (tests/run_tests.py, Embed-SESM.py, Validate-SESM-Safe.py), since the standard ships working tooling rather than just templates.
• [artifacts].governance_notes — the full public-review packet (explainer, safe profile, threat model, privacy, conformance, security, validator rules, reference implementation, submission pitch, contributing, code of conduct, license). Each is its own page in this docs section.
• [adopter_artifacts].legacy_project_manifests — points at the preserved pre-SFDS project manifest under references/legacy-project-manifests/.

svg_asset.schema.json

The canonical JSON Schema (draft 2020-12) for SVG asset records, including the embedded sesm object. It wraps SESM metadata inside a broader "asset" envelope used by the Aptlantis ingestion pipeline (type, asset_type, slug, source, dimensions, roles, debug, ai).

{
  "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
  "$id": "https://aptlantis.net/schemas/svg_asset.schema.json",
  "title": "APTlantis SVG Asset Metadata",
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "type": { "type": "string", "const": "asset" },
    "asset_type": { "type": "string", "const": "svg" },
    "slug": { "type": "string" },
    "source": {
      "type": "object",
      "properties": {
        "format": { "type": "string", "const": "svg" },
        "content": { "type": "string" },
        "content_hash": { "type": "string" }
      },
      "required": ["format", "content"]
    },
    "sesm": {
      "type": "object",
      "description": "SVG Embedded Semantic Metadata (SESM) block, 0.3.x with 0.2.0 compatibility.",
      "properties": {
        "sesm_version": { "type": "string", "enum": ["0.2.0", "0.3.0"] },
        "asset": { "type": "object", "required": ["id", "role"] },
        "artifact": { "type": "object" },
        "theme": { "type": "object" },
        "ui": { "type": "object" },
        "crawl": { "type": "object" },
        "llm": { "type": "object" },
        "links": { "type": "object" },
        "provenance": { "type": "object" },
        "integrity": { "type": "object" },
        "extra": { "type": "object", "additionalProperties": true }
      },
      "required": ["sesm_version"]
    },
    "dimensions": { "type": "object" },
    "roles": {
      "type": "array",
      "items": { "type": "string", "enum": ["logo", "icon", "branding", "diagram", "illustration", "ui", "other"] }
    },
    "debug": { "type": "object" },
    "ai": { "type": "object" }
  },
  "required": ["type", "asset_type", "slug", "source"]
}

Field-group summary:

• type / asset_type / slug — top-level discriminators identifying this as an SVG asset with a stable, URL-safe slug.
• source — the original SVG source (raw XML string plus optional content hash), as imported from the asset database.
• sesm — the embedded SESM block itself. sesm_version is the only required field; asset.id and asset.role are required whenever asset is present. Sub-objects (artifact, theme, ui, crawl, llm, links, provenance, integrity, extra) are all optional and independently validated — see the full property list in the source file for enums (asset roles, theme states, hex color patterns).
• dimensions — parsed SVG width/height/viewBox, if available.
• roles — coarse functional roles for the asset within APTlantis (distinct from sesm.asset.role, which is SESM's own finer-grained vocabulary).
• debug — import/pipeline provenance (importer id, timestamp, source collection/id) — separate from sesm.provenance, which is asset-facing.
• ai — optional AI-derived summary/tags, superseded in new metadata by sesm.llm.summary and sesm.asset.tags (the embedding tool maps legacy ai fields onto these automatically).