This project contains a JSON Schema for describing Alfresco Add-ons and a runnable Java class that can be used to validate JSON against the schema.
The reason this exists is so that the community has a common way to describe add-ons separate from any specific directory or listing.
Much in the same way as a pom.xml or package.json describes a project, addon.json describes an Alfresco Add-on in an implementation-independent way.
Using this approach, Add-on developers can more easily define their projects and make those descriptions available to other systems that might choose to index or list Add-ons to help the community find relevant and useful projects.
Rather than going to this index or that index, developers should just describe their Add-on using JSON that complies with the schema, then place the addon.json file in the root of their project directory.
Under src/main/resources/examples you will find a file called addon.json which validates cleanly against the schema.