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Federation MVP status and feedback

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EventCatalog Enterprise Feature

EventCatalog Federation is being introduced as an initial working release for feedback.

The core workflow is ready to combine real catalogs, validate ownership, and build an organization-wide view. The first release deliberately keeps source configuration and execution explicit while EventCatalog learns how teams want to operate Federation.

What is included​

The MVP includes:

  • GitHub sources
  • Local filesystem sources for development
  • Indexing and hydration of EventCatalog resources
  • Cross-catalog relationship and version resolution
  • Central catalog ownership validation
  • Schemas, specifications, sidecar files, public assets, and custom components
  • Configurable off, warn, and error diagnostic rules
  • Content hashing and a verified local cache
  • Stale generated-output cleanup
  • Restoration of previous output after a normal failed update
  • A lockfile that records completed source and managed public-file state

Current boundaries​

The first release does not include:

  • add, status, or dry-run source management commands
  • Automatic Federation before dev, build, or generate
  • Local source watcher integration
  • A frozen mode that installs the commits recorded in eventcatalog.lock
  • Graph diff commands
  • Automatic cache pruning
  • Parallel source fetching
  • A command for publishing catalog.index.json
  • Federation of top-level reusable snippets/

Sources are configured manually in eventcatalog.config.js and processed with:

npx eventcatalog federate

These constraints are intentional for the feedback release. They keep the contract small while the team observes which operational workflows matter in real organizations.

Useful areas for feedback​

When you try Federation, consider:

  • Is editing federation.sources directly clear enough?
  • Do you prefer moving branches or immutable commits?
  • Which diagnostics should block your organization catalog?
  • Does local filesystem Federation give you a useful development loop?
  • How often do resource, asset, or component collisions occur?
  • Should Federation run manually, in CI, or automatically before builds?
  • Do your teams share custom components, reusable snippets, or npm dependencies?
  • How large are your catalogs and how long does a Federation run take?
  • What information would you expect from future status or diff commands?

Share feedback​

The most useful feedback includes:

  • What you were trying to federate
  • The number and approximate size of the source catalogs
  • Whether the sources were GitHub or local
  • What worked
  • What was confusing
  • The diagnostic or workflow that blocked you
  • What you expected Federation to do

Share feedback in the EventCatalog Discord or open an issue in the EventCatalog repository.