databrickslabs / databrickslabs/ontobricks

[FEATURE]: select relationships/entities from pre-existing/imported ontologies instead of redefining them

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#126 0 comments 0 reactions 1 assignee View on GitHub

@benoitcayladbx is already working on this.

Since Jul 29, 2026.

enhancement
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Python
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Description

Is there an existing issue for this?
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Problem Statement

Today, adding a relationship or entity in the Business Views designer means defining a new property or class from scratch, even when a semantically identical, widely used relationship or entity already exists in a standard vocabulary (e.g. dcterms, prov, skos, xsd, ...).

There's currently no way to search across relationships and entities already defined in the domain/registry, or available from an imported ontology, and select one directly.

This matters beyond convenience: models built with standard, widely recognised relationships and entities are far easier to align, merge, or federate with other ontologies. It promotes interoperability, trust and effort.

Proposed Solution

When creating a property/edge in the designer, offer a search/picker over:

  • properties already defined elsewhere in the same domain or registry, and
  • ship a small set of foundational vocabularies (SKOS, Dublin Core, PROV-O, XSD) available for import/reuse out of the box, since these are extremely commonly reused relationship vocabularies in RDF/OWL modeling generally, distinct from the domain-specific industry ontologies already supported.
Area

Ontology Management

Additional Context

This ties into the earlier issue [#42 ] about integrating ontologies, but from a different angle.

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