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Event Data Specification
Requested by Het Normo
Version 1.2
Status For approval
Publication date 2025-09-22

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Dictionary - explanatory guide for terms and abbreviations

Table of contents

Note

This document distinguishes two patterns, namely the information-rich pattern and the information-poor pattern

In the information-rich pattern of EDA, in addition to the notification, the relevant information itself is also sent in a message (also called an ‘event-carried state-transfer’ pattern).

In the information-poor pattern of EDA, only a notification of a change is posted, and the Consumer itself retrieves the information later via an API. This does require an API architecture to retrieve the data from the source.

Introduction

The CoP SA Vision Document [10] recommends adopting Event Driven Architecture (EDA) as a valuable pattern for optimizing data exchange in the energy domain. This vision provides a basis and guideline for further elaboration (for example a guideline or a concrete implementation) to fully utilize the benefits of Event Driven Architecture. The Vision Document is in line with the vision of the Dutch government: for example, in 2022 the Notification Services Project [11] was carried out by ‘VNG Realisatie’ on behalf of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The aim of the project was to standardize automated notification of applications within the Dutch government and to be able to work better and more often event-driven as a government.

This document is in line with this vision and is a further concrete elaboration of it. The main purpose of this document is to define a specification for describing event data, or events, which we will further refer to as the Event Data Specification. This specification was developed for the energy sector by the API Strategy Working Group on behalf of Het Normo.

To carry out this assignment, the API Strategy Working Group sought cooperation with the API Knowledge Platform, or in Dutch Kennisplatform API’s, which has been commissioned to develop a government-wide usable message format for notifications. The API Knowledge Platform aims to promote cooperation between parties that work with APIs and standards within the government and knowledge platform participant ‘VNG Realisatie’ was involved in the aforementioned project Notification Services (2022) that was commissioned by the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

One of the products of the Notification Services project is the NL GOV profile for CloudEvents [12]. This is a specification for the standardized description and exchange of data about occurring events. The profile builds on the CloudEvents specification that was developed by the Serverless Working Group of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.

The basis of CloudEvents is a specification for the standardized description of event data. In addition, standards have been (and are being) developed that describe how the specification can be applied when using specific data formats and transport protocols. The objective is to increase the interoperability of services, platforms and facilities worldwide.

The NL GOV profile for CloudEvents [12] contains agreements on the use of the CloudEvents specification within the Dutch government. It has been agreed how government organizations use certain attributes. In this way, international standardization is used in the government.

This is supplemented with agreements that are necessary or desirable within the Dutch context.

CloudEvents is a standardized and protocol-neutral definition of the structure and metadata description of events. The CloudEvents message standard defines a set of metadata (‘context attributes’) about events that are transferred between applications and the way in which the metadata must be included in exchanged messages. Based on existing metadata, events can be filtered and routed in a standardized way towards consuming applications (‘consumers’). Consumers can use the metadata in provided events for processing. Where necessary, own, e.g. domain-specific attributes can be defined in the form of ‘extended attributes’ and included in messages.

In this Event Data Specification document, metadata (‘context attributes’) and content message data (‘payload attributes’) are clearly and recognizably distinguished.

This Event Data Specification document is based on the NL GOV profile for CloudEvents [12] and is a sector-specific interpretation for the energy sector. It focuses on the specification of the mandatory ‘context attributes’, the recommended file size and case convention of an event. The guidelines for this are described and explained in the following paragraphs.

Event Data Specification

This Event Data Specification is a guideline for events designed and developed by the energy sector and takes precedence over the NL GOV profile for CloudEvents [12].

These specification guidelines are grouped by theme:

  1. specification of the defined context attributes. Each type of event (information-poor or information-rich) must contain this defined attribute set. This is described in guidelines ID01 to ID08
  2. defined file size of an event. Described in guideline ID09;
  3. defined case convention. Described in guideline ID10.

Finally, an example of an event message is shown. The guidelines are numbered consecutively and follow the above-mentioned thematic order.

Field ‘specversion’

ID 01
Name specversion
Type string
Detail metadata specification version

Open section for description, explanation, constraints and example

Description

The specversion attribute identifies the version of the CloudEvents specification used by the event. This enables interpretation of the context. Conformance requirements for event producers dictate that they must use a value of ‘1.0’ when referring to this version of the specification.

Explanation

The CloudEvents standard specifies that only the ‘major’ and ‘minor’ version numbers are included in this attribute. This allows ‘patch’ changes to be made to the specification without changing the value of this property in the serialization.

Constraints

Example

"specversion" : "1.0"

Field ‘id’

ID 02
Name id
Type string
Detail message identifier

Open section for description, explanation, constraints and example

Description

The id attribute identifies the individual event, (preferrably) in the form of a UUID.

Explanation

CloudEvents provides a solution to implement idempotency, requiring that the combination of id and source uniquely identifies an event, which can be used as the idempotency key in downstream implementations. The combination of id and source must therefore be unique from the perspective of the producer. The combination of id and source can be used by a consumer to determine whether an event has already been processed.

Constraints

Example

"id": "f3dce042-cd6e-4977-844d-05be8dce7cea"

Field ‘source’

ID 03
Name source
Type URI reference
Detail origin of the event

Open section for description, explanation, constraints and example

Description

The source attribute contains a consecutive unique identification of the organization and the source system that publishes the event. This attribute identifies the source of the event. The combination of organization and source system must be unique.

Explanation

This guideline tightens NL GOV profile for CloudEvents and prescribes that source is always a composite attribute of organization and source system. In NL GOV profile for CloudEvents this is a recommendation.

The logical owner of the source, or the initial holder of the data, together with its role, is part of the payload.

Constraints

Preferred order for <type identifier>: EAN, KVK, OIN

Example

"source" : "urn:ean13:8716859000003:cmr"

In this example, the EAN13 of EDSN is used to identify the producing organization and ‘cmr’ (central meter register) is specified as source system.

Field ‘type’

ID 04
Name type
Type string
Detail type of event

Open section for description, explanation, constraints and example

Description

The type attribute contains a value that describes the type of event that is related to the original event. It provides the intent of the event in the right context. Context is relevant in defining the type.

Explanation

This guideline deviates from the specification in NL GOV profile for CloudEvents and prescribes that type is always a composite attribute of context designation (domain), object and executed command.

Constraints

Example

"type" : "mdm.meter.updated"

In this example, type indicates that it concerns an update of meter data within the context of ‘mdm’. This abbreviation stands for ‘measurement data management’ and identifies a Business Solution within EDSN. This Business Solution can be regarded as a context and is defined as: ‘managing meter and measurement data, including operations such as supplementing, checking and performing calculations’.

Field ‘datacontenttype’

ID 05
Name datacontenttype
Type string
Detail message payload encoding

Open section for description, explanation, constraints and example

Description

The datacontenttype attribute describes how the event data in data is encoded. Event producers must provide the datacontenttype context attribute to enable event consumers to determine the content type of the event data.

Explanation

This guideline tightens NL GOV profile for CloudEvents and prescribes that datacontenttype must always be present as a context attribute if event data is present. In NL GOV profile for CloudEvents this is a recommendation.

Constraints

Example

"datacontenttype" : "application/json"

Field ‘time’

ID 06
Name time
Type timestamp
Detail moment of event creation

Open section for description, explanation, constraints and example

Description

The time attribute contains the moment in time at which the source system created the message.

Explanation

This guideline tightens NL GOV profile for CloudEvents and prescribes that time must always be present as a context attribute. In NL GOV profile for CloudEvents this is a recommendation.

Constraints

Example

"time" : "2023-09-22T14:01:54.957127Z"

Field ‘dataversion’

ID 07
Name dataversion
Type string
Detail metadata specification version

Open section for description, explanation, constraints and example

Description

The dataversion attribute contains the semantic version of the event data represented by the data attribute. It must formatted according to major.minor.patch notation as described in API Design Guideline ID02.

Explanation

This guideline is energy sector specific. The NL GOV profile for CloudEvents does not prescribe this attribute. Note that the major versioning is reflected in the URI address of the queue (see Het Normo URI Guidelines).

Constraints

Example

"dataversion" : "1.0.1"

Field ‘data’

ID 08
Name data
Type object
Detail message payload

Open section for description, explanation, constraints and example

Description

The data attribute contains the event payload. This attribute does not impose any restrictions on the type of this information. It is encoded in a media format specified by the datacontenttype attribute (for example, ‘application/json’).

Explanation

This guideline is a tightening of NL GOV profile for CloudEvents and prescribes that attribute data must always be present if payload data is present. In NL GOV profile for CloudEvents this is a recommendation.

Constraints

Example

{
   "name" : "Data Field"
}

Message size

ID 09
Detail size of the message

Open section for description, explanation, constraints and example

Description

CloudEvents messages can be routed to different systems and consumers, including devices with limited resources. The message size of the event, or event file size, is very important to ensure interoperability between these various possibilities. The maximum size of a CloudEvents compatible message is 256 kB. This means that producers must always keep event payloads compact and point to data instead of including data if the event file size is larger than 256 kB.

Explanation

This guideline prescribes that the maximum event file size is 256 kB, as relaxation to the NL GOV profile for CloudEvents. The aforementioned profile recommends limiting the maximum size to 64 kB.

Constraints

Naming convention

ID 10
Name Naming convention
Detail Case convention and name size limit

Open section for description, explanation, constraints and example

Description

CloudEvents requires that context attributes be described as key-value pairs. The names of the context attributes may not exceed 20 characters and must consist of lowercase letters (‘a’ to ‘z’) or digits (‘0’ to ‘9’) from the ASCII character set. The payload attributes follow the case convention of the corresponding REST API and are in camelCase according to API Design Guidelines ID16.

Explanation

This guideline applies if own, e.g. domain-specific attributes (‘extended attributes’), are defined and included in messages. It also requires that the same convention is used between the payload of the event and the resource payload of the corresponding REST API.

Constraints

Field ‘subject’

ID 11
Name subject
Type string
Detail subject filter

Open section for description, explanation, constraints and example

Description

The subject attribute represents a specific data element related to the event type. Each event type can define its own interpretation of the subject. For example, in an event of type mdm.meter.updated the subject refers to the meter number that was updated. Including the subject in contextual metadata is particularly useful for generic subscription filtering scenarios and for clarifying the event its scope without requiring payload parsing.

Explanation

As messages can be numerous there is a need to filter relevant messages for the consumer. This field offers additional context for processing.

Constraints

Example

"subject" : "E00000000035671400"

Field ‘dataref’

ID 12
Name dataref
Type string
Detail reference URL

Open section for description, explanation, constraints and example

Description

The dataref attributes contains a full reference to the data object to which this message refers to. A consumer should be able to directly invoke the API and get details for the data object.

Explanation

Using a dataref instead of a payload allows for thin events.

Constraints

Example

"dataref": "https://energysector.nl/energy-grid/energy-grid/meter-management/v1/meters/E0000000000000"

Event Example

In the next example a fat event is given which should be published by EDSN as organisation, from the source system ‘centraal meter register’, with example values for the context attributes:

{
   "specversion": "1.0",
   "id": "e65558c4-2734-44f1-b04e-63923b0ab97a",
   "type": "mdm.meter.updated",
   "source": "urn:ean13:87037436423:cmr",
   "time": "2023-09-22T14:01:54.957124Z",
   "subject" : "E00000000035671400",
   "dataversion": "1.0.1",
   "datacontenttype": "application/json",
   "data": {
      ---- payload ----
   }
}

In the next example is equal to the previous, except for being a thin event (without payload):

{
   "specversion": "1.0",
   "id": "e65558c4-2734-44f1-b04e-63923b0ab26f",
   "type": "mdm.meter.updated",
   "source": "urn:ean13:87037436423:cmr",
   "time": "2023-09-22T14:01:54.957124Z",
   "subject" : "E00000000035671400",
   "dataref": "https://energysector.nl/energy-grid/energy-grid/meter-management/v1/meters/E00000000035671400",
}