Introduction

FerroTERM is a pure-Rust FHIR terminology server for SNOMED CT, LOINC, and other clinical code systems, SNOMED CT first. It serves the HL7 FHIR terminology API from a single binary, backed by a memory-mapped index built once per code system release. There is no JVM, no Elasticsearch, and no external database.

Note

The name: Ferro for the Rust family FerroTERM shares with FerroEHR, TERM for terminology. The site is https://ferroterm.eu.

Status: early design

This repository is in discovery. The team is scoping the design before writing product code, so this book describes intended behaviour, marked as planned where the server does not exist yet. Read a sentence in the future tense (“the server returns”, “you run”) as a design commitment, not a claim that you can run it today. The design authority, with citations, is docs/architecture.md in the repository.

Who each part of this book is for

The book is organized by what you want to do.

• Evaluate is for anyone deciding whether FerroTERM fits. It covers what the server is, why it exists, the architecture at a glance, and how it compares to Snowstorm, Ontoserver, and Hermes.
• Operate is for operators and deployers. It covers installing and running the server, configuration, loading a licensed SNOMED CT edition, hardware sizing, and verifying a release before you run it.
• Integrate is for API consumers. It covers the FHIR terminology operations, implicit value sets and ECL, the supported FHIR versions, and worked request and response examples.
• Contribute is for contributors. It covers building and testing, the FHIR code generation model, and where the deeper design lives.

Two things that are always true

You bring your own code system content. The software is open source under the MIT license. SNOMED CT is licensed by SNOMED International, LOINC by the Regenstrief Institute, and this repository ships no code system content. You load a licensed release, and the server serves it. See Loading a SNOMED CT edition.