Skip to main content
ScreenJSON is a JSON Schema for screenplay documents. The authoritative machine-readable definition lives at https://screenjson.com/schema.json.

​
Top level

{
  "id":       "<uuid>",
  "version":  "1.0.0",
  "title":    { "en": "The Heist" },
  "lang":     "en",
  "charset":  "utf-8",
  "dir":      "ltr",
  "authors":  [ /* one or more */ ],
  "document": { "cover": { ... }, "scenes": [ ... ] }
}

​
Required at the root

id, version, title, lang, charset, dir, authors, document.

​
Optional at the root

generator, locale, contributors, characters, colors, sources, registrations, revisions, encrypt, license, taggable, genre, themes, logline, analysis.

​
Schema draft

Current draft id: https://screenjson.com/draft/2026-01/schema. Documents pin their authored schema via the root version field (semver).

​
Design commitments

  • Structural, not presentational. Element types describe what a thing is, not how it looks. Presentation lives in the optional layout block.
  • Language as first-class. Every user-facing text field is a BCP 47 keyed map.
  • Stable identity. Every referenceable node carries an RFC 4122 UUID.
  • additionalProperties: false everywhere. Extension data lives only in meta.
  • Analysis is additive. Everything under analysis is optional and discardable.

​
Reference pages

Document root

Required and optional properties at the top of a document.

Shared types

uuid, slug, lang, text, name, meta, tags, roles, datetime.

Authors & contributors

Credit model.

Characters

Character index.

Scenes

Scene shape with cast and production tags.

Sluglines

Structured scene headings.

Elements

Typed scene body elements.

Revisions & notes

Editorial passes and anchored annotations.

Layout

Optional rendering hints.

Analysis

Embeddings, passages, summaries.

Encryption

AES-256-CTR content encryption.

Conformance

Validation, versioning, extensions.