Using $schema to validate against meta-schema is protocol-sensitive. Should it?

I'd like feedback on whether this is an issue and, if yes, what an optimal solution would be.

What version of Ajv are you using?

8.20.0

What problem do you want to solve?

$schema is an (optional) field in a user-defined schema. AJV uses it to validate the schema itself against a meta-schema.

For example, if a schema begins with

{
  "$schema": "http://json-schema.org/draft-07/schema#",

AJV validates it against JSON Schema, draft 07, which is one of the popular meta-schemas.

The problem: AJV treats this field as protocol-sensitive. If a user gives the same schema address starting with https, AJV cannot retrieve the meta-schema and throws an error: Uncaught Error: no schema with key or ref "https://json-schema.org/draft-07/schema#" In this case, the route is identical; URLs differ only in protocol. A browser is able to retrieve draft 7 JSON Schema using any of these two URLs - and https is generally considered to be preferable, so users are likely to use https by default. However, only one of these URLs can be recognized by AJV - and it's not https.

What do you think is the correct solution to the problem?

A contributing factor is that the site of JSON Schema refers to draft 7 at its dedicated page by using https: https://json-schema.org/draft-07 ...but the schema itself uses the id with http. This schema comes bundled with AJV at ajv/dist/refs/json-schema-draft-07.json. One option is to make AJV treat these URLs as referring to the same meta-schema for metas bundled with it.

However, this may potentially have unintended consequences that I am not aware of. What do you think?

Will you be able to implement it?

Yes.