trailpack

Trailpack proposes a standard way to link data and specialized metadata in one single file. It provides a simple interface to link metadata to fixed ontologies, improving the accessibility and comparability of datasets from different sources.

It can be used in general to combine metadata and data into a parquet file.

Why? The ultimate goal is to make open data accessible and sustainable. Trailpack takes one step into this direction by including standardised metadata directly into the data files.

Want to take a next step towards open data? You could start preparing your datasets or participate in developing this tool!

Trailpack collects metadata and directly validates it with the developed standard including

• general metadata for the datapackage, like name and license

• specialised metadata for each data column - linking both column names and units to fixed descriptions given in ontologies provided by PySt
  The developed standard expands on and is compatible with the datapackage standard. The metadata is and included under the datapackage.json keyword.

Both formats for metadata and file format are chosen based on widespread usage and standardisation. The output file is readbale using pyarrow and other data handlers - and will be compatible and consumable using (Sentier data tools)(https://github.com/sentier-dev/sentier_data_tools)

Tailpack was initially built during the hackathon of brightcon 2025 in Grenoble, as part of developing the standard data format for Départ de Sentier in Issue 1.