Governance & standardization

mzPeak is developed as an open community standard under HUPO-PSI (the Proteomics Standards Initiative) — the same body that stewards mzML and the PSI-MS controlled vocabulary.

Status

mzPeak is at version 0.9 (working draft). It has not yet been ratified through the formal HUPO-PSI document process: the container, signal-data layouts, index file, and metadata model are specified and implemented, while a few normative questions remain open and are tracked in the specification.

• Read the current draft — Specification
• Follow or comment on the open questions — HUPO-PSI/mzPeak-specification

How it's governed

The format is defined by a public specification and anchored in the PSI-MS controlled vocabulary, so its semantics are the vocabulary the community already uses. Decisions are made in the open through the HUPO-PSI working groups and a technical committee, with discussion on the public mailing list and GitHub.

Why you can build on it

• Open & language-independent. ZIP + Apache Parquet are ubiquitous; the on-disk structure is documented and not tied to a single core library.
• Independently implemented. Seven from-scratch implementations — the Rust reference plus Python, R, C#, Java, JavaScript/TypeScript and C++ — read and write the same archives. See Build with mzPeak.
• Verifiable. A versioned, profile-driven conformance validator checks that files meet the spec.
• Stewarded by a standards body. Governance sits with HUPO-PSI, not a vendor.

Get involved

mzPeak is a community effort and contributions are welcome — implementations, converters, test data, and review of the open questions.

• Specification & issues — HUPO-PSI/mzPeak-specification
• The wider project — HUPO-PSI on GitHub · psidev.info
• Questions — info@mzpeak.org (see Contact)