A pure-Rust openEHR Clinical Data Repository. openEHR conformance, measured.

openEHR separates clinical knowledge from software: applications store and query structured health records through a vendor-neutral REST API and the Archetype Query Language. FerroEHR implements that standard natively in Rust: headless, API-first, one self-contained binary on PostgreSQL 18.

Get started Try the live demo

No JVM · no language runtime · every conformance number machine-verified.

Why we built it

An open standard deserves an implementation you can run

openEHR writes clinical meaning down as a shared, computable model, which is what lets a record outlive the application, the vendor and the procurement cycle that produced it. A specification that good deserves a CDR anyone can actually run.

One licence, no open-core tier

The whole application is source-available under the Business Source License 1.1, with every capability in one repository and nothing held back for a paid tier. Reading, building, modifying and redistributing the source is free, and so is every non-production use. Production use is free for personal use, research, teaching and a non-profit or public body outside the course of a business. Treating patients, any other production use by a company, hosting it for third parties, and distributing it for a fee need a commercial licence. Each version becomes Apache 2.0 four years after it is published. A table says whether you need one. Cadasto B.V., the Licensor, arranges commercial licences: write to info@cadasto.com or use its contact page.

Send the improvements back

The one thing we ask, and cannot require. A private fork pays for the whole maintenance surface alone; upstreamed, the same work is maintained once for everyone. A defect found once gets fixed everywhere, which is what clinical software should do.

Read the full statement

Conformance

Conformance you can verify.

The complete openEHR conformance catalogue runs against a live server, in JSON and XML, and the runner computes the profile verdicts. The committed record names the FerroEHR version it measured.

1104cases executed

1104passed

0failed

CORE · PASS STANDARD · PASS OPTIONS · PASS SEC-BASIC · PASS Full comparison vs upstream →

Platform

The openEHR platform services

Generated from the official machine-readable models: a specification update is a regeneration.

REST API 1.1.0

EHR, EHR_STATUS, COMPOSITION, DIRECTORY, CONTRIBUTION, query, template and admin resources. Canonical JSON and XML on the wire.

AQL 1.1 engine

Typed path analysis over a spec-generated Reference Model, compiled to efficient SQL, including ALL_VERSIONS and stored queries.

Full versioning

Contribution-atomic commits, indelible version history, logical delete, attestations and per-version digital signatures.

Templates & validation

OPT 1.4 ingestion, WebTemplate generation and deep composition validation against archetype constraints and terminology bindings.

One self-contained binary

A minimal distroless image, and no garbage-collection pauses in the write path.

PostgreSQL 18-native

Temporal versioning with database-enforced non-overlap, UUIDv7 keys and canonical openEHR JSON stored verbatim.

Security

OIDC authentication, RBAC/ABAC authorization and an IHE ATNA access log. One instance per organisation.

Integration

AMQP change events, a FHIR terminology server (FerroTERM), an IHE ATNA audit feed and S3 multimedia storage connect openEHR to the systems around it. FHIR mapping lives in FerroBRIDGE, a separate server.

Quick start

Running in one command

The full stack (server plus PostgreSQL 18) from one Docker Compose file. No checkout, no configuration.

shell

# With docker-compose.yml from the latest release in the current directory
$ docker compose up

# Probe the status endpoint
$ curl http://localhost:8080/ferroehr/rest/status

# Create an EHR (development credentials: ferroehr / ferroehr)
$ curl -u ferroehr:ferroehr -X POST -i \
    http://localhost:8080/ferroehr/rest/openehr/v1/ehr

# Query it with AQL
$ curl -u ferroehr:ferroehr -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
    -d '{"q":"SELECT e/ehr_id/value FROM EHR e"}' \
    http://localhost:8080/ferroehr/rest/openehr/v1/query/aql

Ecosystem

Fits your stack

PostgreSQL 18 Keycloak / OIDC RabbitMQ / AMQP FHIR R4B terminology S3 / SeaweedFS Kubernetes / Helm Prometheus / OpenTelemetry