Changes & Errata¶
This page records changes to the VIDS validator and specification that adopters should be aware of. For the complete technical changelog, see CHANGES.md in the standard repository.
Validator v1.2.x — annotation-sidecar enforcement¶
Behavior change — a passing dataset may now fail
From validator v1.2.0 (released 2026-05-21), a dataset carrying a _bbox, _cls, _lm, or _roi sidecar without VIDSVersion or a conformant Provenance block passed under validator 1.1.x and fails under 1.2.x.
What changed. Rules A004 and A005 were extended to check VIDSVersion and provenance completeness on every annotation sidecar, across all five spec-defined suffixes (_seg, _bbox, _cls, _lm, _roi). Earlier validators inspected only *_seg.json. Rules A002 and A003 were generalized to match.
Why. SPEC §10.1 has marked VIDSVersion and Provenance REQUIRED on every annotation sidecar since VIDS 1.0. Validator 1.2.0 expanded enforcement to match those existing requirements — a conformance correction for a previously under-enforced field, not a new requirement. The specification is authoritative; the validator implements it. See the erratum in §15.3 Backward Compatibility.
Who is affected. Only datasets that were passing solely because an earlier validator did not inspect their non-segmentation sidecars. No published VIDS dataset is affected — LIDC-Hybrid-100 validates 21/21, and the IDRiD fundus reference implementation validates 15/21, under 1.2.1.
What to do
If you have datasets with _bbox, _cls, _lm, or _roi sidecars, make sure each sidecar includes:
"VIDSVersion": "1.0", and- a
Provenanceblock withAnnotator.ID(orName) andAnnotationProcess.Date(orTool).
Then re-run the validator to confirm. Datasets that already conform need no changes.
Validator version history¶
| Version | Released | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1.1.0 | 2026-03-28 | Initial public release |
| 1.1.1 | 2026-04-08 | Packaging-only update |
| 1.2.0 | 2026-05-21 | Annotation-sidecar enforcement widened to all five suffixes (see above) |
| 1.2.1 | 2026-06-09 | D001 (CHANGES.md) scoped to the Full profile; current release |
The online validator mirrors the current CLI release (vids-validator on PyPI). To pin a specific version, pip install vids-validator==1.2.1.