Describing LDP Applications with the Hydra Core Vocabulary

The Linked Data Platform (LDP) W3C Recommendation provides a standard protocol and a set of best practices for the development of read-write Linked Data applications based on HTTP access to Web resources that describe their state using the RDF data model. The Hydra Core Vocabulary is an initiative to define a lightweight vocabulary to describe hypermedia-driven Web APIs. By specifying concepts commonly used in Web APIs such as hypermedia controls with their explicit semantics, the Hydra Core Vocabulary enables creation of generic API clients. This paper discusses how LDP applications can benefit from the Hydra Core Vocabulary to describe their APIs. Using Hydra, an LDP application can enable generic clients by describing the semantics of the expected and returned data. Having an API documentation will be a more efficient approach for most LDP applications than gathering information about affordences and restrictions in each HTTP interaction. Nevertheless, there are potential conflicts that have to be taken into consideration such as Hydra collections vs LDP containers or Hydra paging vs LDP paging.