Valueflows
Semantic & Data ProtocolsVocabulary for the distributed economic networks of the next economy, to coordinate the creation, distribution, and exchange of economic resources. Implements the REA (Resource, Event, Agent) accounting ontology with additions for recipes, offers/requests, ecological accounting, and distributed protocol compatibility. Designed to support coordination both inside and between organizations (enterprise not assumed), reciprocity with or without money (money not assumed), and ecological agents as part of the economic network
Hybrid Community Low capture risk
Links
Details
License AGPL / GPL-3.0 / Apache 2.0 / Public Domain
Dev Status Released
Owner ValueFlows community (open governance); key contributors include Lynn Foster, Bob Haugen (both REA practitioners since 1990s), elf Pavlik, Mikey Williams, Connor Turland; namespace URI: https://w3id.org/valueflows/ont/vf#
Country International
Start Year 2014
Stack hREA, Bonfire, Basis Project
Funding Community
Last Investigated Jan 15, 2026
Semantic & Data Protocol Attributes
Protocol Maturity / Standardization Community Standard (vocabulary specification developed by international community; W3C-adjacent but not formal W3C track)
Vocabulary / Ontology Type Economic flows / Resource, Event, and Agent coordination; covers planning (Intents, Commitments, Proposals), observation (Economic Events, Economic Resources), recipes (RecipeProcess, RecipeFlow), agents (persons, organizations, ecological agents), processes (IPO chains), exchanges, and agreements
Usage Pattern Embedded in other protocols and platforms (used by hREA on Holochain, Bonfire on ActivityPub/Fediverse, Dyne's Reflow/Interfacer for EU Digital Product Passport, Carbon Farm Network/NY Textile Lab for supply chains, Sensorica for open value networks, LearnDeep for fablab materials sharing, Basis Project for ecological production, Code A for climate accounting education, Weather Makers for ecosystem restoration planning)