There is much focus at the moment on how to ensure experimental replicability in e.g. the molecular sciences. An important aspect of that is having access to FAIR data; data which is findable, accessible, inter-operable and re-usable. One of the “gold standards” in chemistry is the data associated with crystal structures. Here I take an inside peek into the standard file-type for carrying crystal structure data, the CIF file (the Crystallographic Information File).