An open, persistent, machine-readable registry for canonical text references — Bekker lines, Stephanus pages, CTS URNs, and the other identifiers humanists already use to cite a passage.

Site: https://textrefs.org · Built with Astro + Starlight.

• an open, persistent, machine-readable registry of canonical text references;
• a set of open standards, JSON-LD shapes, and reference implementations;
• a curated source of mappings between canonical references and external identifiers (CTS URNs, Wikidata IDs, DOIs, ARKs, Perseus URLs, etc.).

The registry currently holds 86,397 references across 23 works and 13 citation systems, including the complete New Testament and Tanakh, Plato, Aristotle, Dante, Hume, and Nietzsche. Every record is status: draft: identifiers are computed deterministically and are stable by construction, but they carry no persistence promise until expert review promotes them.

• a full-text database or a critical edition;
• a publisher or commercial SaaS;
• a substitute for Perseus, Loeb, TLG, PHI, DTS, CTS, or any library catalogue.

• Site: https://textrefs.org
• Get started: https://textrefs.org/get-started/
• Find a reference: https://textrefs.org/find/ — type a citation as you would write it
• Browse the registry: https://textrefs.org/reg/
• Standard: https://textrefs.org/standard/
• API: https://textrefs.org/api/ — contract at https://textrefs.org/api/openapi.yaml
• Ontology: https://textrefs.org/ontology/ · JSON Schema: https://textrefs.org/schemas/v1/textrefs.schema.json
• Bulk downloads: https://textrefs.org/dump/
• Association (mission, statutes, governance): https://textrefs.org/association/
• POSI self-assessment: https://textrefs.org/association/posi/
• Announcements: https://textrefs.org/blog/
• Zenodo community (archived dumps & DOIs): https://zenodo.org/communities/textrefs/

• textrefs.org — Astro/Starlight site, standard text, JSON-LD shapes, API scaffolds.
• registry — hand-authored YAML source for the registry data (CC0).
• .github — org profile and default community health files.

Pre-1.0 and bootstrap-funded. The standard, the JSON-LD context, the URL layout, and the API contract are working drafts and may change without a major version bump before v1.0.

The standard is published first, and the registry/resolver engine is deferred on purpose: a public resolver is the next milestone on the roadmap, and it will be built against a fixed standard rather than alongside a moving one. Architecture decisions are recorded as ADRs in decisions/.

TextRefs is a non-profit association (Verein) based in Zürich, founded on 2 September 2026 under Art. 60 ff. of the Swiss Civil Code. On 27 August 2026 the Cantonal Tax Office of Zürich assured the association of tax exemption on grounds of public benefit, subject to its being founded as presented. That assurance is not yet a legally binding decision, so donations are not tax-deductible yet.

• Propose a work or a citation system — open an issue or a pull request in registry. New data merges as draft after technical review; see the authoring guide.
• Review the standard — textrefs.org issues and discussions.
• Join the Board — we are looking for domain expertise in theology, law, classical philology, philosophy, mediaeval studies, digital editions, and library science. See the open call.
• Contributing guide · Code of conduct · Security policy

Content of this repository is licensed under CC BY 4.0.