Modifying already-ingested STAC Items in the PRR – Clarification needed

Algorithm Support
1

Dear APEx Team,

In relation with the ESA funded project EO4Resilience, we have to deliver a representative dataset to the ESA PRR as per our project’s contractual requirements. We have successfully ingested a set of STAC Items and their associated COG assets using the reg-api-client script with our data provider credentials.

However, we now need to make some corrections to the STAC Item JSON metadata of already-ingested items, and before proceeding we would like to get clarification on the following points:

  1. Is it possible to modify STAC Item JSON metadata without re-uploading the COG assets?

Looking at the Registration API Swagger UI (/reg-api/docs), we can only see POST and DELETE endpoints and no PUT or PATCH. Does this mean that direct metadata-only updates are not supported? Or is there an alternative mechanism we are not aware of?

  1. Is the recommended procedure for metadata updates a DELETE + re-ingest workflow?

If no update endpoint is available, we assume the correct approach is to delete the existing item and re-register it with the corrected JSON. Could you confirm this is the intended procedure and whether there are any caveats to be aware of (e.g. rate limits, timing between delete and re-ingest)?

  1. Does DELETE remove the COG files from S3 or only the STAC catalogue entry?

This is our main concern. If DELETE also removes the physical assets from the PRR S3 bucket, we would need to re-upload the full COGs, which is time-consuming. If instead only the catalogue registration is removed and the files persist on S3, what is the correct way to re-register the item pointing to the existing S3 location rather than triggering a new asset upload?

Any clarification or pointers to documentation would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance for your support!

Best regards,

2

Hello,

For any doubts about ESA PRR and its features, please check this FAQ page:
[PRR Collections Specifications]

I copy here the part that should respond to your points:

  • List item
    PRR datasets are foreseen to be validated and verified results of EOP projects, to be preserved long-term, they are thus not expected to be edited, patched or deleted.
  • List item
    In the rare case of an error in the ingestion process, involving wrong STAC Item metadata or wrong assets uploaded, it is anyway possible to request the PRR operator to delete specific products or datasets, so they can be re-ingested with fixed data or metadata.
  • List item
    Request to delete datasets has to be performed via email to the ESA engineering support team. Please state clearly in the request if the removal involves only the STAC Item metadata, with the assets being moved back to the PRR Staging S3, or also the assets products should be removed as they will be re-uploaded.

Thanks,
ESA engineering support team