verifiedValidate

Check a graph against a SHACL shapes graph and get back a W3C sh:ValidationReport as JSONB — data you can persist, alert on, or gate ingestion with.

What it is

Validate takes a data graph and a shapes graph and reports every constraint violation as structured rows. The report is the same shape the W3C SHACL spec defines, returned as JSONB so it composes with regular SQL.

How you run it

pgrdf.validate(data_graph BIGINT, shapes_graph BIGINT, mode TEXT DEFAULT 'native') → JSONB

The mode selects the engine:

• 'native' (default) — W3C SHACL Core 25/25, the rudof SHACL Core engine, with the W3C manifest runner wired into CI.
• 'pgrdf' — the shipped, authoritative SHACL-SPARQL gate. The pgRDF-native handler evaluates SHACL-SPARQL custom constraints (sh:sparql / sh:select / sh:ask) directly against the hexastore — no N-Triples rehydrate — and returns the correct W3C verdict.
• 'sparql' — routes SHACL-SPARQL constraints to the rudof SparqlEngine. The dispatch reaches the engine, but it carries an open correctness caveat (E-014): it returns the wrong verdict on common topologies, so it is not a trusted gate — use 'pgrdf' for SHACL-SPARQL correctness.

See Pillar 4 — Validation and SHACL-SPARQL.

Where it sits in a chain

After Reason or Seal, before Query or as an ingestion gate. Validating after Reason checks the entailed closure, not just the asserted triples — often what you actually want.

Scaling class — single-threaded

Like Reason, Validate runs on one backend over a graph sized to your box. It is the other half of the single-threaded class that the carve pattern exists to serve.

Example

-- data graph 1, shapes graph 2
SELECT pgrdf.validate(1, 2);
--  → {"conforms": true, "results": []}

See also

• Pillar 4 — Validation — SHACL Core components and the report shape.
• Report as data — querying the JSONB report.
• Pattern: Load → Validate → Query — the validation-gate chain.