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On-disk Format

An anarchie deployment is a directory tree of plain files. There is no hidden state - what you see is the whole store.

my-cdr
├── anarchie.toml              # deployment config
├── ehrs                       # one git repository per patient
│   └── <ehr-id>
│       ├── ehr.json           # the EHR object
│       ├── ehr_status
│       │   └── status.json    # the EHR_STATUS object
│       ├── compositions
│       │   └── <object-id>
│       │       └── composition.json   # canonical head version
│       └── contributions
│           └── <id>-contrib.json      # contribution manifest
├── index                      # derived query index (gitignored)
│   └── .gitignore
└── templates                  # registered OPTs
    ├── index.json
    ├── vital_signs_encounter.v1.opt.json   # bundled starter templates
    ├── problem_list.v1.opt.json            #   (omitted with --minimal)
    ├── adverse_reaction_list.v1.opt.json
    ├── medication_list.v1.opt.json
    ├── laboratory_result_report.v1.opt.json
    ├── immunisation_list.v1.opt.json
    ├── procedure_list.v1.opt.json
    ├── encounter_note.v1.opt.json
    └── attribution.md          # CC-BY-SA provenance for the starter templates

A default init seeds templates/ with eight bundled starter Operational Templates (and an attribution.md recording their CC-BY-SA provenance); a --minimal deployment leaves templates/ holding only index.json.

Key conventions

  • One canonical JSON file per Composition head. The working-tree file always holds the latest version; every earlier version lives in git history. This is the working-tree-holds-head convention.
  • One git repository per EHR. A patient record is self-contained and portable - clone, back up, or hand over a single record without touching the rest of the store.
  • The index is derived and disposable. index/ is .gitignored. It is regenerable from the canonical files, so it never belongs in version control.
  • Templates live outside the data. The schema (OPTs) is registered once under templates/, not copied into every record, so the files stay lean.

version_uid

Every committed version has a version_uid of the form:

<object_id>::<system_id>::<version_tree_id>
  • object_id - the stable identity of the versioned object (a UUID).
  • system_id - the creating system, from anarchie.toml (set at init).
  • version_tree_id - a 1-based counter; 1 for the first version, incrementing on each new version of the same object.

Reading it back

Because everything is canonical JSON in an ordinary git repository, the store is fully readable with standard tools - ls, cat, jq, ripgrep, git log, git show - with no anarchie binary required. See Inspecting the Files.

The authoritative design lives in the specs in the repository.