Atlas data platform — documentation

Welcome. This documentation is for people using the Atlas data platform — querying its data, building on top of it, or trying to understand what a particular number means.

If you're trying to figure out what Atlas is as a product, start at the repo's README and the About Atlas page.

If you're trying to build or operate the data pipeline, see atlas-data/ and website/docs/ai-developer/.

This documentation is for everyone else.

What Atlas's data platform is, in one paragraph

Atlas aggregates public data about Norway's NGO sector and the humanitarian needs that shape it. On the data side, that means a Postgres marts.* schema containing:

• Conformed dimensions — dim_kommune, dim_fylke, dim_ngo, dim_chapter, dim_activity. The canonical entities, with stable identifiers (kommune_nr, orgnr, etc.) used consistently across every other table.
• Per-source indicator passthroughs — indicators__ssb_08764, indicators__fhi_mobbing, etc. One per upstream source, normalising shape but preserving meaning.
• Cross-source facts — fact_kommune_indicators (every kommune-level need indicator from every source, in one queryable table) and fact_chapter_activities (every NGO chapter × activity combination).
• Reference vocabularies — ref_atlas_service_category (cross-NGO activity taxonomy), ref_un_sdg, ref_brreg_icnpo, and others.

Read access is via a read-only Postgres role. A public HTTP/JSON API is planned but not yet shipped.

Who this documentation is for

You are…	Start here
Curious what Atlas is and who it's for	About Atlas, Personas
Curious about the Norwegian NGO sector	NGO landscape, Sector research
New to the platform and want to understand what a row means	How to read a row
Looking up what a specific concept means (kommune, chapter, activity)	concepts/ (in progress)
Looking up what a specific measurement means (e.g. ssb-08764 + EUskala50)	measurements/ (in progress)
Looking for the upstream source of a particular table	sources/ (in progress)

The state of this documentation, honestly

This folder is early. The marts.* schema is production-shape with 19 ingest sources implemented, but the user-facing documentation is just starting. What exists today:

• This intro page.
• The About section — what Atlas is and who it's for.
• The Sector section — Norwegian civil society landscape and research evidence.
• One worked example: How to read a row — walks through one record from upstream SSB to the final mart.

What's planned (and why it isn't here yet): see website/docs/ai-developer/plans/backlog/INVESTIGATE-semantic-foundation-before-expansion.md and docs/ideas/semantic-data-platform-discussion.md.

If a page you need doesn't exist, the data probably does — open an issue or check the dbt model's schema.yml description in atlas-data/dbt/models/.

Conventions

• Norwegian field names where SSB/FHI/Brreg use them (kommune_nr, fylke_nr, orgnr) — these are the public-registry canonical forms; we don't anglicise them.
• English column names where Atlas defines them (source_id, chapter_level, service_category_code).
• All dates and timestamps in ISO 8601, UTC.
• Provenance always present — every row in marts.fact_* carries source_id and updated_at so you can trace it back.