Migrate to FHIR Schema

Aidbox is transitioning to the FHIR Schema engine. Existing zen and Entity/Attribute (EA) engines are deprecated and will be obsolete starting August 2025. July 2025 version will become LTS, supporting zen and Entity/Attributes for 2 years.

Read full announcement

Migration Overview

The migration process involves six key steps:

1. Identify deprecated entities defined with zen and Entity/Attributes

2. Set up a parallel environment with FHIR Schema

3. Migrate profiles

4. Migrate custom resources

5. Migrate search parameters

6. Validate resources and resolve issues

Step 1: Identify Deprecated Capabilities

First, obtain a comprehensive list of all your zen and Entity/Attribute (EA) components that will need migration:

GET /deprecated/capabilities

Example response:

{
  "custom-entities": {
    "total": 0,
    "entities": []
  },
  "custom-attributes": {
    "total": 0,
    "entities": []
  },
  "custom-search-param-resource": {
    "total": 1,
    "params": [
      "MyCustomResource.name"
    ]
  },
  "custom-zen-resources": {
    "total": 0,
    "resources": []
  },
  "zen-profiles": {
    "total": 111,
    "profiles": [
      "http://hl7.org/fhir/us/core/StructureDefinition/us-core-bmi",
      // ...additional profiles...
    ]
  },
  "custom-zen-search-params": {
    "total": 1,
    "params": [
      "main/my-parameter"
    ]
  },
  "zen-fhir-search-params": {
    "total": 100,
    "params": [
      "hl7-fhir-us-core.search.us-core-observation-code/search",
      // ...additional search params...
    ]
  }
}

Step 2: Set Up Parallel Environment with FHIR Schema Engine

Launch a parallel Aidbox instance configured to use the FHIR Schema, connected to the same database and the same Zen configuration project (if you have one).

Below is an example of a docker-compose file with two Aidbox instances running on the same database: the first Aidbox (aidbox_zen) is configured with a zen configuration project and uses zen validation mode, while the second (aidbox_schema) is set up to use the FHIR Schema.

version: '3.7'
volumes:
  aidbox_pg_data: {}
version: '3.7'
volumes:
  aidbox_pg_data: {}

services:

  aidbox_db:
    image: healthsamurai/aidboxdb:17
    pull_policy: always
    volumes:
    - aidbox_pg_data:/data:delegated
    environment:
      PGDATA: /data
      POSTGRES_USER: aidbox
      POSTGRES_PORT: 5432
      POSTGRES_DB: aidbox
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: password

  aidbox_zen:
    image: healthsamurai/aidboxone:edge
    pull_policy: always
    depends_on: 
      - aidbox_db
    ports:
      - "8888:8888"
    environment:
      PGHOST: aidbox_db
      PGPORT: 5432
      PGUSER: aidbox
      PGDATABASE: aidbox
      PGPASSWORD: password
      AIDBOX_PORT: 8888
      AIDBOX_BASE_URL: http://localhost:8888
      BOX_PROJECT_GIT_TARGET__PATH: /aidbox-project
      AIDBOX_ZEN_ENTRYPOINT: main/box
      AIDBOX_DEV_MODE: "true"
      AIDBOX_ZEN_DEV_MODE: "true"
      AIDBOX_CLIENT_SECRET: very_secret
      AIDBOX_ADMIN_PASSWORD: password
      AIDBOX_COMPLIANCE: enabled
      AIDBOX_LICENSE: <aidbox-license>
      AIDBOX_FHIR_VERSION: "4.0.1"
    volumes:
      - "./zrc:/aidbox-project/zrc"
      - "./zen-package.edn:/aidbox-project/zen-package.edn"
      - "./zen-packages:/aidbox-project/zen-packages"

  aidbox_schema:
    image: healthsamurai/aidboxone:edge
    pull_policy: always
    depends_on:
    - aidbox_db
    ports:
    - 8080:8080
    environment:
      BOX_BOOTSTRAP_FHIR_PACKAGES: hl7.fhir.r4.core#4.0.1
      BOX_FHIR_SCHEMA_VALIDATION: true
      AIDBOX_CLIENT_SECRET: very_secret
      AIDBOX_ADMIN_PASSWORD: password
      AIDBOX_COMPLIANCE: enabled
      PGHOST: aidbox_db
      PGUSER: aidbox
      AIDBOX_PORT: 8080
      AIDBOX_BASE_URL: http://localhost:8080
      BOX_PROJECT_GIT_TARGET__PATH: /aidbox-project
      AIDBOX_ZEN_ENTRYPOINT: main/box
      AIDBOX_DEV_MODE: "true"
      AIDBOX_ZEN_DEV_MODE: "true"
      PGDATABASE: aidbox
      PGPASSWORD: password
      PGPORT: 5432
      AIDBOX_LICENSE: <aidbox-license>
      AIDBOX_FHIR_VERSION: "4.0.1"
    volumes:
      - "./zrc:/aidbox-project/zrc"
      - "./zen-package.edn:/aidbox-project/zen-package.edn"
      - "./zen-packages:/aidbox-project/zen-packages"

For detailed FHIR Schema engine configuration instructions, refer to the FHIR Schema setup documentation.

Step 3: Migrate FHIR Packages to FHIR Schema

Set FHIR core packages using an environment variable:

AIDBOX_FHIR_PACKAGES=hl7.fhir.r4.core#4.0.1:hl7.fhir.us.core#3.1.0

Step 4: Migrate Custom Resources

If you have custom resources defined by Entity & Attributes, follow this guide

Migrate custom resources defined with Entity & Attributes to FHIR Schema

If you have custom resources defined by Zen, follow this guide -

Migrate custom resources defined with Zen to FHIR Schema

Step 6: Validate Resources and Resolve Issues

Since the FHIR Schema validation engine is more reliable and validates all the FHIR container cases, we need to validate existing data with FHIR Schema using Aidbox Asynchronous Validation API.

Check Deprecated Capabilities

GET /deprecated/capabilities

If you have total 0 for each section, your migration is complete. You can delete legacy zen and Entity/Attribute (EA)-related configuration.

Verification Steps

After completing the migration:

1. Verify API functionality:

GET /fhir/Patient?_summary=count

1. Test search parameters:

GET /fhir/Patient?custom-param=value

1. Validate that resource creation and updates work properly:

POST /fhir/Patient
Content-Type: application/json
{
  "resourceType": "Patient",
  "name": [
    {
      "given": ["Test"],
      "family": "Patient"
    }
  ]
}