Skip to content
Common ApproachDeveloper Docs

Code lists

CIDS uses published code lists (SKOS-style taxonomies) for classification fields — sectors, populations, impact themes, units, funding states, and more. This page describes normative reference rules for the profile; Graph Cast and other tools may sync these lists for convenience.

Normative reference rules

Section titled “Normative reference rules”
  1. Use concept URIs — Reference the published concept IRI from codelist.commonapproach.org, not only a human-readable label.
  2. Prefer canonical serializations — Turtle (.ttl) on the code list server is canonical; JSON-LD (.jsonld) is common in capsules.
  3. Version with the server — At validation time, concepts should resolve on the public server. Offline validation may merge code lists into the graph to avoid false ClassConstraint violations.
  4. Required vs. optional lists — Depend on alignment tier and use case; tier SHACL and the Alignment Checklist mark which properties expect code list links.

Local and companion taxonomies

Section titled “Local and companion taxonomies”

Some taxonomies (e.g. Palier Fixe for Quebec social economy reporting) are companion mappings to CIDS — useful for specific programs but not part of the core Basic Tier contract. See Palier Fixe mapping (advisory).

Code list server

Section titled “Code list server”

Lists are published at codelist.commonapproach.org. Replace the extension to retrieve alternate formats:

https://codelist.commonapproach.org/CanadianCorporateRegistries.jsonld
                                                               .ttl
                                                               .csv
                                                               .owl
                                                               .nt

Source repository: github.com/commonapproach/CodeLists

Code lists by content type and use

Section titled “Code lists by content type and use”

Impact themes

Section titled “Impact themes”

Used via forTheme on Outcomes and Indicators in JSON-LD capsules. Graph Cast table reads expose the same links as themes; the theme= filter on table reads matches against these IRIs.

List What it covers
SDGImpacts UN Sustainable Development Goals 1–17. Preferred IRIs: https://metadata.un.org/sdg/1 through /sdg/17
IRISImpactCategory GIIN IRIS+ impact categories (Agriculture, Climate, Education, Health, etc.)
IRISImpactTheme GIIN IRIS+ impact themes (finer-grained than categories)
IrisMetric53 IRIS+ impact metrics — maps to Indicator definitions

Organization classification

Section titled “Organization classification”
List What it covers
ESDCSector ESDC sector classification (18 sectors)
OrgTypeGOC Government of Canada organization types: Charitable, Cooperative, For-Profit, Non-Profit
ICNPOsector International Classification of Nonprofit Organizations
StatsCanSector Statistics Canada economic sectors
CanadianCorporateRegistries Canadian corporate registry identifiers

Stakeholder and population

Section titled “Stakeholder and population”
List What it covers
PopulationServed Population categories (27 entries)
EquityDeservingGroupsESDC ESDC equity-deserving group categories (13 entries); a subset of the PopulationServed list

Geography

Section titled “Geography”
List What it covers
ProvinceTerritory Canadian provinces and territories
LocalityStatsCan Statistics Canada locality types

Measurement

Section titled “Measurement”
List What it covers
UnitsOfMeasureList Standard units — cids:countUnit, cids:percentUnit, cids:cad, cids:kilogram, etc. Maps to unit on Indicators and IndicatorReports

Funding

Section titled “Funding”
List What it covers
FundingState Funding workflow states: Applied, In Review, Funded, Rejected. Used in sff:FundingStatus nodes — see modelling funds

Program-specific lists (advisory)

Section titled “Program-specific lists (advisory)”

These lists support particular programs or partners. They are useful when your use case requires them, but they are not part of the core Basic Tier interchange contract.

List What it covers
SELI-GLI Social Equity and Gender-Lens Investment questionnaire items
SELI-GLI-SFI Funder-specific version of SELI-GLI
RallyImpactArea Rally Assets impact areas (IRIS+-based)
PalierFixeElement Measurement terms for the Quebec social economy context (~500 entries, French) — see Palier Fixe case study

How code lists connect to CIDS

Section titled “How code lists connect to CIDS”

In the full CIDS ontology, external classifications are often referenced through Code instances with hasIdentifier, or directly via hasCode / theme IRIs on Outcomes and Indicators. Capsules may use direct theme IRIs (e.g. SDG URLs) or the full Code indirection — both are valid when SHACL passes.

Pattern Example
Direct theme IRI on Outcome "forTheme": ["https://metadata.un.org/sdg/12"]
Code node with identifier hasCode pointing to a Code individual linked to a registry concept
Unit on IndicatorReport cids:countUnit, cids:percentUnit, or codelist URI from UnitsOfMeasureList

Graph Cast’s CRUD lane often uses theme IRIs directly via the themes field; capsule import preserves full RDF patterns including forTheme. See Graph Cast capsules.

Spreadsheet and utility mapping

Section titled “Spreadsheet and utility mapping”

Aligned Excel and Airtable templates map columns to these lists. That mapping is tool documentation, not normative for interchange — exported JSON-LD must still use URIs that validate against SHACL, not the literal labels that are used in the templates.

Section titled “Related”