GS1 Web Vocabulary & Masterdata
Web Vocabulary models, masterdata-to-resolver REST pattern, GS1 Germany Activate Plus / GEPIR sync, and the event-driven masterdata bus.
The Masterdata layer is the descriptive side of the platform — who makes a product, where it's made, what it weighs, what regulations it falls under, what its sustainability profile looks like. EPCIS captures events (what happened, when, where, with which identifier); Masterdata captures the meaning of those identifiers. The resolver is where the two layers meet: a Digital Link URL resolves to the Web Vocabulary record that says "this is GTIN 09521234000013, made by Acme GmbH in Stuttgart, here are its certifications".
The platform is strict about one thing: masterdata is never embedded inside EPCIS documents. It is POSTed to the resolver via /organizations/{gln}, /products/{gtin} and /places/{loc} and stored there as the single canonical record. EPCIS events stay lean — they reference identifiers and let consumers fetch the description from the resolver when they need it. This is the platform's most strongly held discipline rule (see Architecture → GS1 conformance). It keeps documents small, removes the possibility of two contradictory copies of the same fact, and gives every client one canonical place to look up "what is this GTIN really".
The flow into and out of GS1 Germany works in both directions. Saving a GTIN or a GLN locally triggers a verification call against the GS1 Germany registry — Activate Plus and GEPIR — and merges the authoritative attributes back into the local record. In the other direction, masterdata held in the deployment is published back through GS1 DE and propagates up to the GS1 Global Office resolver. The customer's deployment is the source-of-truth for the records it owns, and the global GS1 network reflects what's in it.
Internally, every masterdata save fires a domain event that downstream services can subscribe to — that's how the resolver's auto-derived linksets stay fresh today. The same bus is designed to carry an EPCIS-event → masterdata promotion: an event arriving at /capture with a new identifier would register that identifier in the resolver automatically. The bridge isn't wired yet — the bus exists, the EPCIS service already emits the events, but the glue between them is still a named roadmap item.
The EU Digital Product Passport work — battery, textile, electronics, EUDR, detergents — lives in this same family. Each is a JSON-LD context that extends the GS1 Web Vocabulary base, served by the same resolver.
Capabilities by edition
| Capability | OSS | Business |
|---|---|---|
| GS1 Web Vocabulary data model (libraries) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Masterdata REST API on the resolver | — | ✓ |
| GS1 Germany Activate Plus / GEPIR sync | — | ✓ |
| Internal masterdata-event bus | — | ✓ |
| Event → Resolver masterdata promotion | — | partial |
REST surface (on the resolver)
Masterdata has no dedicated service — it is the resolver's write side:
| Method | Path | Role | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
POST | /organizations/{gln} | capture | Create / update organisation; fires the masterdata event |
POST | /products/{gtin} | capture | Create / update product; auto-populates linksets |
POST | /places/{location-id} | capture | Create / update place |
POST | /products/{gtin}?verify=true | capture | Above + GS1 DE Activate Plus sync |
POST | /bulk/products | capture | Multipart CSV / JSON-LD bulk import |
GET | /products/{gtin} | query | Read full record (multi-tenant DLS applies) |
GET | /organizations/{gln} | query |
See also
- Modules → Resolver — where masterdata ends up resolvable.
- Modules → EPCIS Events — events that reference these masterdata records via Digital Link identifiers.
- Roadmap → Event-to-Resolver masterdata promotion — closes the half-built bridge.
- Architecture → GS1 conformance contract — the discipline rule.