Back to blog
Eclipse Tractus-X: The Open-Source Foundation of Catena-X

Eclipse Tractus-X: The Open-Source Foundation of Catena-X

Tractus-XCatena-XOpen SourceEDC

Catena-X defines standards and business processes for sovereign data exchange in the automotive industry. The technical implementation of these standards is developed as open-source software in the Eclipse Tractus-X project -- hosted by the Eclipse Foundation.

What is Eclipse Tractus-X?

Eclipse Tractus-X is the official open-source reference implementation of the Catena-X ecosystem. The project provides all software components required to operate a Catena-X-compliant dataspace. All components are developed under open-source licenses and are freely available through the Eclipse Foundation.

In addition, Tractus-X now also serves as the technical foundation for several Manufacturing-X initiatives. This means the project's significance extends well beyond the automotive sector.

Core Components at a Glance

The following diagram shows the component architecture of Eclipse Tractus-X:

Tractus-X Architecture

The key building blocks of the project include:

  • Tractus-X EDC Connector -- the Catena-X distribution of the Eclipse Dataspace Components for secure data exchange
  • Portal -- the central user interface for onboarding and managing dataspace participants
  • BPDM (Business Partner Data Management) -- management and validation of business partner data
  • Digital Twin Registry -- the registry for digital twins based on the Asset Administration Shell
  • KITs (Keep It Together) -- modular toolboxes with documentation, API specifications, and reference implementations for specific use cases

Getting started with a local development environment is done via Helm charts. The following example shows the installation of a Tractus-X EDC Connector:

# Add the Helm repository
helm repo add tractusx-edc \
  https://eclipse-tractusx.github.io/charts/dev

helm repo update

# Install the connector with default configuration
helm install my-connector tractusx-edc/tractusx-connector \
  --namespace catena-x \
  --create-namespace \
  --set controlplane.env.EDC_HOSTNAME=localhost \
  --set dataplane.env.EDC_HOSTNAME=localhost

Why This Matters

Open standards alone are not enough -- there also needs to be openly available software that implements those standards. Eclipse Tractus-X fills exactly this gap. By hosting the project under the Eclipse Foundation, companies gain access to a vendor-neutral, collaboratively developed codebase on which commercial products and custom solutions can be built.