Enterprise format · Growth plan

Notation3 (N3)

Logic, rules, and inference.

4 / 5GEO score

N3 · Geordypage.n3

Why it matters

N3 is a human-readable RDF syntax that extends Turtle with rules, quantification, and quoted graphs, letting publishers express not just data but logical relationships in one file. For AI and reasoning agents this matters because N3 documents can be both parsed as RDF and executed by N3 reasoners (cwm, EYE), giving a single, machine-actionable artifact for facts and inference.

Geordy generates this format for every page on your site that warrants it - auto-detected by page type, served from your subdomain, and refreshed on the cadence below.

Sample outputpage.n3

@prefix geordy: <http://geordy.ai/ns#> .
@prefix schema: <http://schema.org/> .

ex:GeordyAI
  a geordy:AIPlatform ;
  schema:name "Geordy AI Platform" ;
  geordy:supportsAI ex:ChatGPT, ex:Claude .

Get it right

How to make this format work for AI.

DoBest practices

Declare every namespace with @prefix at the top of the file and reuse standard vocabularies (rdf:, rdfs:, owl:, foaf:, schema:, dcterms:) instead of inventing new ones.
Use the abbreviation `a` for rdf:type and `;` / `,` to group predicates and objects, which keeps the document compact and easy to diff.
When you need rules or implications, scope variables with @forAll or `?x` and use the `=>` (log:implies) operator from the standard log: vocabulary so any conformant N3 reasoner can run them.
Validate documents with an N3/Turtle parser (Apache Jena, rdflib, EYE, cwm) before publishing - N3 is a superset of Turtle, so unintended rule constructs can sneak in.

AvoidCommon pitfalls

Mixing N3-only constructs (rules, quoted graphs `{ ... }`, @forAll) into a file you intend to be Turtle, which then fails in Turtle-only consumers.
Forgetting the trailing `.` that ends every statement, which produces silent parse errors mid-document.
Using bare CURIEs (foo:bar) without a matching @prefix declaration, leading to undefined-prefix errors.

Where it shines

Use cases, scored for AI visibility.

Knowledge representationGEO 5/5

Data integrationGEO 4/5

Rule-based systemsGEO 4/5

Used in production by

Real sites already shipping Notation3 (N3).

W3CPublishes N3 specsw3.org Apache JenaN3 parserjena.apache.org EYE reasonerN3 logic enginegithub.com Solid projectTurtle/N3 for personal data podssolidproject.org

Working with it

Tools & resources for Notation3 (N3).

Tools

GeordyGEO Impact EstimatorFree tool cwm (reference N3 processor)w3.org EYE reasonereulersharp.sourceforge.net Apache Jenajena.apache.org N3.js (Ruben Verborgh)github.com

Resources

Notation3 (N3): A readable RDF syntaxw3.org Tim Berners-Lee's N3 Primerw3.org

The trade-offs

Strengths

Human-readable syntax
Supports logic rules
Concise and extensible

Limitations

Less strict than Turtle
Lower adoption than JSON-LD for web data

Spec sheet

Filename

page.n3

Refresh cadence

weekly

Released

2000 · Tim Berners-Lee & Dan Connolly

Written forReasoning enginesKnowledge graph systemsAI agents using inference

Written for these readers. Which of them actually request it is measured, not assumed: see how we measure.

Documented support

W3C Team Submission: Notation3 (N3)An assertion and logic language that is a superset of RDF.

Observed requests

Not measured yet. Geordy will publish which crawlers request this file once enough independent sites are covered. See how we measure.

Other enterprise formats

DCAT (RDF Data Catalog)Dataset discovery, the W3C way.dataset.dcat JSON FeedRSS, but JSON-native.feed.json TOMLMinimal, human-friendly config.page.toml TurtleCompact RDF triples.page.ttl

How to make this format work for AI.

Use cases, scored for AI visibility.

Real sites already shipping Notation3 (N3).

Tools & resources for Notation3 (N3).

Generate every format at once.