Open Coaching Format

An open standard for representing sports coaching diagrams, drill animations, and playbooks as structured data.

No open standard for this exists today — coaching tools like the FIBA Europe Coaching App, FastDraw, and Sportplan.net all use proprietary, image-only formats. OCF is a JSON-based alternative any tool can read, write, and render.

Quick example

A pass followed by a cut to the basket, in half-court FIBA coordinates:

{
  "court": { "ruleset": "fiba", "type": "half_court" },
  "entities": [
    { "type": "offense", "nr": 1, "x": -3.0, "y": 6.0 },
    { "type": "offense", "nr": 2, "x": 3.0, "y": 6.0 }
  ],
  "balls": [ { "id": "ball_1", "carried_by": "offense_1" } ],
  "frames": [
    {
      "id": "frame_1",
      "actions": [
        { "player": "offense_1", "type": "pass", "to_player": "offense_2" },
        { "player": "offense_1", "type": "cut", "moves": [ { "to": { "named": "basket" } } ] }
      ],
      "end_state": {
        "offense_1": { "named": "basket" },
        "balls": { "ball_1": { "carried_by": "offense_2" } }
      }
    }
  ]
}

Explore

Docs

Full specification, JSON Schema, key features, and supported rulesets.

Examples

Worked OCF drills: pick and roll, 3-man weave, transition offense, and more.

Ecosystem

Validator, renderer, and editor projects built on top of OCF, plus the roadmap.

Using the Validator

Try the reference validator instantly in the browser playground — nothing is uploaded, validation runs client-side. Itserror codes are documented separately.

ocf-validatoris not yet published to npm or PyPI. Run it from source instead:

git clone https://github.com/opencoachingformat/ocf-validator
cd ocf-validator/packages/ts
npm install && npm run build
node dist/cli.js path/to/your-file.ocf.json

A Python implementation with matching validation behavior is available under packages/py in the same repository.