# Introduction

**tidysdmx** is a Python toolbox for producing SDMX-conformant data with as little ceremony as possible. It sits on top of [pysdmx](https://py.sdmx.io) and adds higher-level helpers for the workflows that statistical agencies and research teams actually run every day:

- pulling schemas from a Fusion Metadata Registry (FMR);
- describing messy raw inputs as SDMX schemas;
- expressing source-to-target mappings in an Excel template;
- applying those mappings to tidy DataFrames;
- validating results against the dissemination DSD;
- emitting SDMX-ML 3.0 artefacts ready for FMR upload.


# Who is this for?

- **Data engineers** wiring up reproducible pipelines that ingest CSVs, Excel files, or database extracts and publish SDMX-conformant outputs.
- **Statisticians and domain experts** who own a mapping between their raw indicators and an official dissemination schema and want to express it without writing XML.
- **Platform teams** integrating SDMX production into orchestrators such as Kedro or Airflow.


# How does it relate to pysdmx?

tidysdmx **wraps pysdmx** -- it does not reimplement it. Wherever pysdmx already provides a model class, reader, writer, or FMR client, tidysdmx calls it directly. The value tidysdmx adds is concentrated at the boundaries: turning a pandas DataFrame into a pysdmx `Schema`, turning an Excel workbook into a `StructureMap`, and turning a mapped DataFrame into the tabular shape that pysdmx writers expect.

If you already know pysdmx, you can think of tidysdmx as a set of opinionated convenience functions; if you don't, you can use tidysdmx without ever touching pysdmx internals.


# What's covered in this guide?

- [Installation](installation.md) -- install with pip or Poetry and verify your environment.
- [Quick start](quick-start.md) -- the smallest end-to-end example.

More chapters -- end-to-end workflow, SDMX concepts, FMR integration, mapping templates, validation, and LLM/agent artefacts -- are in progress and will be linked here as they land.


# Status

tidysdmx is **under active development**. Public APIs are stabilising but may still change between minor versions. Pin a version in production and check the [changelog](../changelog.md) before upgrading.