Use

Starting the Service

Blaze Profile (Default)

Start the FHIR Validator with the local Blaze terminology server:

docker compose --profile blaze up -d

Or use the helper script:

./scripts/start-validator-with-blaze.sh

Ontoserver Profile

Start the FHIR Validator with the MII Ontoserver via nginx proxy (requires client certificates in nginx/certs/):

docker compose --profile ontoserver up -d

Or use the helper script:

./scripts/start-validator-with-ontoserver.sh

Loading Terminology Resources into Blaze

After starting Blaze for the first time, upload the required MII terminology packages:

# Download terminology packages (CodeSystems, ValueSets)
./scripts/terminology/get-mii-terminology.sh install

# Wait for Blaze to be ready, then upload:
./scripts/terminology/upload-terminology.sh

Without this step, terminology-dependent validation (CodeSystem lookups, ValueSet bindings) will fail.

Validating a FHIR Resource

The validator exposes a single HTTP endpoint on port 8080.

Endpoint

POST http://localhost:8080/validateResource

Headers

Header	Values
Content-Type	application/fhir+json or application/fhir+xml
Accept	application/fhir+json or application/fhir+xml (optional, defaults to JSON)

Example – JSON

curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/validateResource \
  -H "Content-Type: application/fhir+json" \
  -H "Accept: application/fhir+json" \
  -d @patient-example.json

Example – XML

curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/validateResource \
  -H "Content-Type: application/fhir+xml" \
  -H "Accept: application/fhir+xml" \
  -d @patient-example.xml

The validator returns an OperationOutcome resource with validation results.

Using a Custom HTTP Terminology Server

To connect to any HTTP terminology server, set TX_SERVER to an http:// URL. The container entrypoint script detects this at startup and automatically generates the required allowHttp configuration for that URL:

docker run -d -p 8080:8080 \
  -e TX_SERVER=http://my-terminology-server:8080/fhir \
  --network your-network \
  ghcr.io/medizininformatik-initiative/mii-fhir-validator:latest

Loading Additional Implementation Guides

To load local IG packages from the igs/ directory, set IG_PARAMS in .env:

IG_PARAMS="-ig /igs/your-package-2026.0.0.tgz"

For multiple IGs:

IG_PARAMS="-ig /igs/package1.tgz -ig /igs/package2.tgz"

Offline Operation

The validator can operate offline, but all dependencies must be pre-cached first.

Run the validator once while online to download and cache all required packages:

docker compose --profile blaze up -d
# Wait for the validator to finish downloading packages:
docker compose logs -f validator
# Once ready:
docker compose down

The package cache is persisted in the fhir-package-cache Docker volume and will be available offline. SNOMED CT release files must also be present in snomed-ct-release/ for Blaze to start.