Describe the process

To describe a process, the OGC API Processes API uses the resource highlighted in bold in the table below:

Resource	Path	Purpose	Part
Landing page	`/`	Top-level resource serving as an entry point.	Part 1
Conformance declaration	`/conformance`	Information about the functionality supported by the server.	Part 1
API Definition	`/api`	Metadata about the API itself.	Part 1
Process list	`/processes`	Lists available processes with identifiers and links to descriptions.	Part 1
Process description	`/processes/{processID}`	Retrieves detailed information about a specific process.	Part 1
Process execution	`/processes/{processID}/execution`	Executes a process, creating a job.	Part 1
Deploy Process	`/processes` (POST)	Deploys a new process on the server.	Part 2
Replace Process	`/processes/{processID}` (PUT)	Replaces an existing process with a new version.	Part 2
Undeploy Process	`/processes/{processID}` (DELETE)	Removes an existing process from the server.	Part 2
Job status info	`/jobs/{jobID}`	Retrieves the current status of a job.	Part 1
Job results	`/jobs/{jobID}/results`	Retrieves the results of a job.	Part 1
Job list	`/jobs`	Retrieves a list of submitted jobs.	Part 1
Job deletion	`/jobs/{jobID}`	Cancels and deletes a job.	Part 1

The process description contains information about inputs and outputs and a link to the execution endpoint for the process.

The OGC API Processes - Core does not mandate the use of a specific process description to specify the interface of a process. That said, the OGC API Processes - Core requirements class makes the following recommendation:

Implementations SHOULD consider supporting the OGC process description.

For more information, see OGC 18-062r2 Section 7.10.

The conformance class ogc-process-description is supported, meaning the server will provide a standard process description that contains the list and detailed description of every input and output.

The input for a process can be either single-valued or multi-valued, meaning you can pass one or more values for a given input.

Every input has minOccurs and maxOccurs attributes. If there are no minOccurs attributes, it means that the value is 1, and that the input is required to execute the process.

Inputs may be optional, indicated by a minOccurs of 0. If there are no maxOccurs, the default value 1 applies, and the input can take only one value.

If maxOccurs is greater than 1, the input can be an array of multiple items.

Response example

{
  "id": "water-bodies",
  "title": "Water bodies detection based on NDWI and otsu threshold",
  "description": "Water bodies detection based on NDWI and otsu threshold applied to Sentinel-2 COG STAC items",
  "mutable": true,
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "metadata": [
    {
      "role": "https://schema.org/softwareVersion",
      "value": "1.0.0"
    },
    {
      "role": "https://schema.org/author",
      "value": {
        "@context": "https://schema.org",
        "@type": "Person",
        "s.name": "Jane Doe",
        "s.email": "jane.doe@acme.earth",
        "s.affiliation": "ACME"
      }
    }
  ],
  "outputTransmission": [
    "value",
    "reference"
  ],
  "jobControlOptions": [
    "async-execute",
    "dismiss"
  ],
  "links": [
    {
      "rel": "http://www.opengis.net/def/rel/ogc/1.0/execute",
      "type": "application/json",
      "title": "Execute End Point",
      "href": "http://localhost:8080/acme/ogc-api/processes/water-bodies/execution"
    }
  ],
  "inputs": {
    "aoi": {
      "title": "area of interest",
      "description": "area of interest as a bounding box",
      "schema": {
        "type": "string"
      }
    },
    "bands": {
      "title": "bands used for the NDWI",
      "description": "bands used for the NDWI",
      "schema": {
        "type": "string",
        "default": "['green', 'nir']"
      }
    },
    "epsg": {
      "title": "EPSG code",
      "description": "EPSG code",
      "schema": {
        "type": "string",
        "default": "EPSG:4326",
        "nullable": true
      }
    },
    "stac_items": {
      "title": "Sentinel-2 STAC items",
      "description": "list of Sentinel-2 COG STAC items",
      "schema": {
        "type": "string"
      }
    }
  },
  "outputs": {
    "stac_catalog": {
      "title": "stac_catalog",
      "description": "None",
      "extended-schema": {
        "oneOf": [
          {
            "allOf": [
              {
                "$ref": "http://zoo-project.org/dl/link.json"
              },
              {
                "type": "object",
                "properties": {
                  "type": {
                    "enum": [
                      "application/json"
                    ]
                  }
                }
              }
            ]
          },
          {
            "type": "object",
            "required": [
              "value"
            ],
            "properties": {
              "value": {
                "oneOf": [
                  {
                    "type": "object"
                  }
                ]
              }
            }
          }
        ]
      },
      "schema": {
        "oneOf": [
          {
            "type": "object"
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

Practice lab

Run the notebook 03 - Describe the process.