Metadata

What is metadata?

Simply put - metadata is data about data! For NFTs, metadata contains important information about each of your tokens, including the token ID, a description of its traits and its link to the image. When you generate with Bueno, the export will include both the image files and the token metadata in a JSON file.

How is it used?

Metadata is required in order to deploy a smart contract, but it has other useful applications as well.

Metadata is the key to relaying information about an NFT. While the NFT token ID and contract address cannot be altered on the blockchain, the metadata assigned to an NFT can be changed. We can see this in action with a delayed NFT reveal. The placeholder image is swapped for your NFT images by switching to IPFS to access your NFTs' metadata. The contract and token ID remain the same - but the metadata has been swapped.

Many creators use metadata to determine NFT rarity rankings. When you set your rarity distribution as you curate your collection, the metadata reflects that information to anyone that views the token.

How can I configure my metadata?

Bueno offers several options for configuring your metadata, including categories, tags, and more. Metadata categories are also important if you want to have control over how NFT ranking is organized. Some aspects of your NFTs may be desired to include in the metadata, such as trait type or trait color. There are other data you may want to exclude - things like categories that just help you organize or apply rules when you are curating your collection. Metadata is public-facing, so it's important that you only include what you want the public to see.

Attribute Metadata

Attribute metadata can be turned on or off at any time. This is useful when you have a trait with elements that span more than one layer, or if you have a layer that is universal to all of your tokens. In both cases, you may not want metadata associated with that particular attribute group.

Example:

Remove background attribute from metadata because it is universal across all tokens. Only the background color varies.

Additionally, you can give your attributes alias names. This will combine two attribute layers into one property in the metadata.

Example:

Hair type and hair color are combined into the same metadata category using the alias feature.

Trait Metadata

You can turn off metadata for individual traits. This is useful when you have a "blank" version of a trait that you do not want to show up in the metadata but need for applying rules and/or tags.

Like with attributes, you can link multiple traits via alias names to group them together into one metadata property.

Tag metadata

Tag metadata allows creators to create additional categories to show up in the metadata. This is useful if you want to create trackable categories from trait combinations. You can also exclude this information from showing up in your metadata.

Example 1:

I have an eye patch trait, a parrot trait and a hook hand trait in my collection. They can show up individually or together. However, when they show up together, I want to apply a special tag, "Pirate," to show up in the metadata.

Example 2:

I am using a "Species" tag to apply species-specific rules to my collection. I do not want these categories to show up in my metadata because they are organizational only. I turn off metadata for that particular tag group.

Custom Metadata

If you're creating a custom token by uploading a unique image file, there's no need to worry when it comes to metadata. You can add custom metadata labels to individually uploaded files. Or, you can omit them completely!