Open Brook is a permissively licensed file format for household preparedness data — inventory, kits, plans, contacts, and reference materials. The spec is published. The schema is published. The reference parser is open source. Anyone can implement it.
{ "format": "openbrook", "version": "1.0", "profile": { "name": "The Garcia household", "region": "Pacific Northwest" }, "items": [ ... ], // 142 entries "kits": [ ... ], // 8 entries "plans": [ ... ], // 5 entries "contacts": [ ... ], // 21 entries "comms": [ ... ] // 12 entries }
The name is a small piece of wordplay. It’s also a checklist of commitments the format makes.
The full specification is published. The JSON Schema is published. The reference parser is open-source. There are no proprietary components, no licensing fees, and no approval process. You can read the spec end to end in an afternoon.
A .brook file is portable
between apps, devices, and platforms. It is a small, clean stream of structured data
— not trapped behind any single product, vendor, or cloud service. Your household
data is yours.
Any developer can build a reader, writer, importer, or exporter. We list every known implementer below. There is no certification body, no membership fee, and no gatekeeping. Build what your users need.
.brook fileThe format is intentionally simple. Anyone with a ZIP utility and a JSON parser can read one.
household.brook/
├── manifest.json
├── photos/
│ ├── 8a3f2c.jpg
│ ├── b2e91f.jpg
│ └── ...
├── documents/
│ └── insurance.pdf
├── maps/
│ └── region-tiles.mbtiles
└── signature.txt (optional)
{ "format": "openbrook", "version": "1.0", "generated": "2026-04-29T...", "generator": { ... }, "profile": { ... }, "bases": [ ... ], "locations": [ ... ], "items": [ ... ], "kits": [ ... ], "plans": [ ... ], "processes": [ ... ], "contacts": [ ... ], "comms": [ ... ], "pins": [ ... ], "changelog": [ ... ] // optional }
If you build a preparedness tool, an inventory app, a household management product, or anything else that touches this kind of data — here’s how to start.
Roughly thirty pages, structured and example-rich. Read it end to end, then bookmark the schema reference for daily use.
Open spec v1.0 →Reference implementations in JavaScript and Python. MIT-licensed. Drop them into a project, or use them as a guide for your own.
View on GitHub →
Once your implementation reads or writes a valid .brook
file, open a pull request to add it to the implementers list.
.brook files.The format launched with one implementer. We hope to list many more here over time.
A beautifully designed, offline-first preparedness compendium for households and the people they look out for. Reads and writes Open Brook v1.0.
braverook.com →We’d love to list your implementation. There’s no fee, no certification, and no gatekeeping — just a pull request.
Add your app →The Open Brook specification is published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0). The reference parser is published under the MIT License. You can use either in commercial or non-commercial work without asking permission.