VC Specifications Directory

The Verifiable Credentials Data Model is designed to be extended by 3rd party specifications to address a variety of real world use cases. Examples of extensions include, but are not limited to, new types of Verifiable Credentials and ways of expressing credential status, schema validation, evidence, refreshing, terms of use, and cryptographic suites for securing credentials.

In order to add a new specification to this directory, an implementer submits a modification request for this directory, as a pull request on the repository where this directory is hosted.

{
  "name": "Example VC",
  "summary": "Used to demonstrate examples for Verifiable Credentials.",
  "specification": "https://example.github.io/example-spec/",
  "category": "vc",
  "maintainerEmail": "maintainer@community.example",
  "maintainerName": "Example Community Group",
  "maintainerWebsite": "https://example.github.io/",
  "vocabulary": ["https://example.github.io/vocabularies/example.yml"]
}

The modification request MUST adhere to the following policies:

1. Any addition to the directory MUST conform to Section 1.1.1 Specification Entry Format.
2. If there are copyright, trademark, or any intellectual property rights concerns, the addition and use MUST be authorized in writing by the intellectual property rights holder under a F/RAND license. Examples include specifications that use trademarked brand names, property names that utilize the titles of copyrighted works, and patented technology that would cause the use of the extension to require licensing a patent.
3. Any addition MUST NOT create unreasonable legal, security, moral, or privacy issues that will result in direct harm to others. Examples of unacceptable additions include any containing racist language, technologies used to persecute minority populations, and unconsented pervasive tracking.

The Editors of this directory MUST consider all of the policies above when reviewing additions to the directory and MUST reject directory entries if they violate any of the policies in this section. Entities registering additions can challenge rejections first with the W3C Verifiable Credentials Working Group and then, if they are not satisfied with the outcome, with the W3C Staff. W3C Staff need not be consulted on changes to the directory, but do have the final authority on directory contents. This is to ensure that W3C can adequately respond to time sensitive legal, privacy, security, moral, or other pressing concerns without putting an undue operational burden on W3C Staff.

Any submission to the directory that meets all of the criteria listed above will be accepted for inclusion. The specifications listed in this directory enumerate all known specifications, without choosing between them.

As well as sections marked as non-normative, all authoring guidelines, diagrams, examples, and notes in this specification are non-normative. Everything else in this specification is normative.

The key words MUST and MUST NOT in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.