CodeMetaSoft

Increasing the availability of software metadata records in Research Software repositories by incorporating metadata enrichment pipelines in the software development practices used by scientists.

I co-lead the CODEMETASOFT project, a 24-month collaborative project launched on November 1, 2024, co-led by Daniel Garijo (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid).

The goal is to transform how research software metadata is captured, enriched, and shared — making it easier for scientists to comply with best practices while reducing manual effort.

The Challenge: Why Metadata Matters

codemeta is becoming an adopted standard for describing software metadata, helping to make software more discoverable, citable, and reusable. However, maintaining high-quality metadata is often a manual, error-prone process that many researchers struggle with.

Our Solution: Automating Metadata maintenance with CODEMETASOFT

CODEMETASOFT introduces a novel framework built on the CodeMeta standard—a widely adopted schema for describing software metadata. Our approach includes:

  1. Autocomplete CodeMeta Wizard - A user-friendly tool to simplify metadata creation, reducing manual input by suggesting fields and auto-filling gaps.

  2. Metadata Enrichment & Gap Detection - Automated pipelines to compare, validate, and enhance metadata records, ensuring completeness and consistency.

The framework will be tested on the ESCAPE Open Source Software and Service Repository (OSSR) where codemeta is already in use, before being rolled out to other repositories and infrastructures.

“This project aims to increase the availability of software metadata records in Research Software repositories by incorporating metadata enrichment pipelines into the software development practices used by scientists.”

Who Benefits?

  • Research Software Engineers (RSEs): Less manual work, more reliable metadata.
  • Researchers: Easier compliance with FAIR principles and software citation standards.
  • Repositories & Infrastructures: Higher-quality metadata improves discoverability and interoperability.
  • The Scientific Community: A more transparent, reusable, and reproducible research ecosystem.

Meet the Team

CODEMETASOFT is a cross-disciplinary collaboration between: