---
layout: default
navsection: api
navmenu: Concepts
title: Common resource fields

...
{% comment %}
Copyright (C) The Arvados Authors. All rights reserved.

SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-SA-3.0
{% endcomment %}

This page describes the common attributes shared by most or all Arvados resources.

h2(#resource). Resource

table(table table-bordered table-condensed).
|_. Attribute |_. Type |_. Description |_. Example|
|uuid|string|universally unique object identifier.  Set on @create@.|@mk2qn-4zz18-w3anr2hk2wgfpuo@|
|owner_uuid|string|UUID of owner (must be a User or Group), set on @create@.  Controls who may access the resource. Ownership may be changed explicitly with @update@, see "permission model":{{site.baseurl}}/api/permission-model.html for details.|@mk2qn-tpzed-a4lcehql0dv2u25@|
|name|string|Human-assigned name.  Not present on all object types, check individual API page.  Uniqueness constraint varys by object type.||
|description|string|Free text description of the object.  Not present on all object types, check individual API page.  May be HTML formatted, "see below for valid HTML tags and attributes":#descriptions .||
|created_at|datetime|When resource was created.  Set on @create@.|@2013-01-21T22:17:39Z@|
|modified_at|datetime|When resource was last modified.  Set on @create@ and @update@.|@2013-01-25T22:29:32Z@|
|modified_by_user_uuid|string|The owner of the API token used to authenticate the @create@ or @update@ request.|@mk2qn-tpzed-a4lcehql0dv2u25@|
|kind|string|@arvados#{resource_type}@|@arvados#collection@|
|etag|string|The ETag[1] of the resource|@1xlmizzjq7wro3dlb2dirf505@|

h2. Object UUID

Each object is assigned a UUID.  This has the format @aaaaa-bbbbb-ccccccccccccccc@.

# The first field (@aaaaa@ in the example) is the site prefix.  This is unique to a specific Arvados installation.
# The second field (@bbbbb@ in the example) is the object type.
# The third field (@ccccccccccccccc@ in the example) uniquely identifies the object.

h2(#descriptions). Descriptions

{% include 'html_tags' %}

h2. Timestamps

All Arvados timestamps follow ISO 8601 datetime format with fractional seconds (microsecond precision).  All timestamps are UTC.  Date format: @YYYY-mm-ddTHH:MM:SS.SSSSZ@ example date: @2016-11-08T21:38:24.124834000Z@.

h2. ETags

fn1. Each response includes an ETag, a string which changes when the resource changes.  Clients can use this to check whether a resource has changed since they last retrieved it.  If a previous ETag is provided along with a request, and the resource has not changed since, the server may return a "not modified" response.