User:Pinfold
From clcwiki
building a Python CRUD interface for the Solid server at solidcommunity.net (managed by the Open Data Institute) will allow structured programmatic interaction with Solid Pods and demonstrate decentralized data principles in action.
Below is a structured work plan tailored for your goals β focusing on clarity, security, and reusability.
π§ Objective
Develop a Python-based CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) interface for interacting with user data stored on Solid Pods hosted at https://solidcommunity.net. The interface should:
Authenticate via Solid OIDC (OpenID Connect)
Perform RDF-based data operations (read/write triples)
Be modular and reusable in scripts or web apps
π§© 1. Background & Setup 1.1. Understand the Solid Protocol
Review Solid Protocol
and Solid API
.
Understand:
WebID: User identity (https://username.solidcommunity.net/profile/card#me)
Pod: Personal data store (https://username.solidcommunity.net/public/)
Access control: Uses WAC or ACP
Authentication: OIDC using solidcommunity.net as the issuer
1.2. Development Environment
Install dependencies:
python3 -m venv venv source venv/bin/activate pip install requests rdflib solid-auth-client
(Weβll use requests for HTTP, rdflib for RDF parsing, and a Python OIDC client for authentication.)
π§ 2. Authentication Module 2.1. Register an App with solidcommunity.net
Visit: https://solidcommunity.net/registerApp
Obtain:
client_id
client_secret
redirect_uri
2.2. Implement OIDC Flow
Use solid_oidc or a generic OIDC library like requests-oauthlib:
from requests_oauthlib import OAuth2Session
authorization_base_url = "https://solidcommunity.net/.well-known/openid-configuration" token_url = "https://solidcommunity.net/token"
solid = OAuth2Session(client_id, redirect_uri=redirect_uri) authorization_url, state = solid.authorization_url(authorization_base_url) print("Visit:", authorization_url)
- After user grants access, use callback URL
token = solid.fetch_token(token_url, client_secret=client_secret, authorization_response=callback_url)
β
Deliverable: Authenticated access token for use in CRUD operations.
π§± 3. Core CRUD Functions
Define a class SolidPodClient:
import requests from rdflib import Graph
class SolidPodClient:
def __init__(self, base_url, access_token):
self.base_url = base_url.rstrip('/')
self.headers = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {access_token}"}
def read(self, path):
url = f"{self.base_url}/{path.lstrip('/')}"
r = requests.get(url, headers=self.headers)
g = Graph()
g.parse(data=r.text, format='turtle')
return g
def create(self, path, data, content_type="text/turtle"):
url = f"{self.base_url}/{path.lstrip('/')}"
r = requests.put(url, headers={**self.headers, "Content-Type": content_type}, data=data)
return r.status_code
def update(self, path, data, content_type="text/turtle"):
return self.create(path, data, content_type)
def delete(self, path):
url = f"{self.base_url}/{path.lstrip('/')}"
return requests.delete(url, headers=self.headers).status_code
β
Deliverable: A reusable Python module that can:
Read RDF data from the Pod
Write (create/update) new resources
Delete resources
βοΈ 4. Testing and Verification 4.1. Test Environment
Use a test Pod at https://yourusername.solidcommunity.net/public/test/.
4.2. Example Operations
- Example: Create a resource
data = """ @prefix schema: <http://schema.org/> . <> a schema:Event ;
schema:name "Cully Community Meeting" ; schema:startDate "2025-11-10" .
""" client.create("public/test/event.ttl", data)
- Example: Read resource
graph = client.read("public/test/event.ttl") for s, p, o in graph:
print(s, p, o)
π 5. Access Control (Optional Extension) 5.1. Web Access Control (WAC)
Solid allows .acl files to specify access:
@prefix acl: <http://www.w3.org/ns/auth/acl#> . <#owner>
a acl:Authorization ; acl:agent <https://yourusername.solidcommunity.net/profile/card#me> ; acl:accessTo <./event.ttl> ; acl:mode acl:Read, acl:Write, acl:Control .
5.2. Automate ACL Management
Add an optional set_permissions() function to your client.
π 6. Packaging and Distribution
Organize your code as a Python package:
solid_client/ βββ __init__.py βββ auth.py βββ client.py βββ utils.py
Add a setup.py and README.md
Optional: Publish to PyPI as solid-crud-client
π 7. Future Enhancements Feature Description π§© JSON-LD Support Parse/write JSON-LD data natively π SPARQL Queries Support querying via SPARQL endpoints π DID/VC Authentication Integrate W3C DIDs and Verifiable Credentials π Web Interface Build a lightweight Streamlit or Flask UI π Integration Connect with Semantic MediaWiki or Linked Data dashboards ποΈ Summary Timeline Week Task 1 Study Solid protocol and register app 2 Implement authentication and token retrieval 3 Build SolidPodClient CRUD module 4 Test against solidcommunity.net Pods 5 Add ACL and RDF utilities 6 Package and document
Would you like me to generate a starter Python repository (with full file structure and working code for authentication + CRUD) so you can clone and start from it?