PROPOSED DID Methods Working Group Charter

The mission of the DID Methods Working Group is to standardize DID Methods that use Web technologies.

Join the DID Methods Working Group

This proposed charter is available on GitHub. Feel free to raise issues.

Charter Status See the group status page and detailed change history.
Start date 01 June 2025
End date 01 June 2027
Chairs [chair name] (affiliation)
Team Contacts [team contact name] (0.1 FTE)
Meeting Schedule Teleconferences: weekly
Face-to-face: we will meet during the W3C's annual Technical Plenary week; additional face-to-face meetings may be scheduled by consent of the participants, usually no more than 3 per year.

Motivation and Background

A DID Method specification defines the precise operations by which Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) and DID documents are created, resolved, updated, and deactivated. Since the publication of the DID Core v1.0 specification, many DID Methods have been created and deployed. As national governments and large corporations continue to adopt this technology, it is beneficial for those organizations to have standardized, production-grade DID Methods to deploy. While DID Methods can be standardized in any standards-development organization, there are a few that utilize the architecture of the Web, and Web technologies, and would benefit standardization at W3C.

Scope

The scope of the initial DID Methods Working Group will be to standardize at least one ephemeral DID Method, one Web-based DID Method, and one fully decentralized DID Method based on Web technologies.

Out of Scope

The following features are out of scope, and will not be addressed by this Working Group.

  • Non-Web-based DID Methods such as Blockchain-based DID Methods.

Deliverables

Updated document status is available on the group publication status page.

Draft state indicates the state of the deliverable at the time of the charter approval. Expected completion indicates when the deliverable is projected to become a Recommendation, or otherwise reach a stable state. .

Normative Specifications

The Working Group will deliver the following W3C normative specifications:

An Ephemeral DID Method

This specification defines a mechanism to create and manage ephemeral DID Documents, such as those based on public cryptographic key information.

Draft specifications: did:key

Expected completion: Q3 2026

A Web-based DID Method

This specification defines a mechanism to create and manage DID Documents using websites.

Draft specifications: Inputs to the Working Group include: did:web, did:webplus, did:webs, did:webvh, and did:scid

Expected completion: Q3 2026

An Fully Decentralized DID Method

This specification defines a mechanism to create and manage the full lifecycle for DID Documents using Web technology but without any sort of required centralization.

Draft specifications: Inputs to the Working Group include: did:webvh (without domain binding), did:peer, did:scid, or a DID Method using a cryptographic event log of some kind.

Expected completion: Q1 2027

Tentative Deliverables

None.

Other Deliverables

Other non-normative documents may be created such as:

  • Use case and requirement documents;
  • Test suite and implementation report for the specification;
  • Primer or Best Practice documents to support web developers when designing applications.

Timeline

  • Month 1: First teleconference.
  • Month 3: FPWD for all Normative Deliverables.
  • Month 9: First face-to-face meeting.
  • Month 12: Candidate Recommendation for all Normative Deliverables.
  • Month 15: Proposed Recommendation for all Normative Deliverables.
  • Month 20: Proposed Recommendation for all Normative Deliverables.

Success Criteria

In order to advance to Proposed Recommendation, each normative specification is expected to have at least two independent interoperable implementations of every feature defined in the specification, where interoperability can be verified by passing open test suites.

There should be testing plans for each specification, starting from the earliest drafts.

To promote interoperability, all changes made to specifications in Candidate Recommendation or to features that have deployed implementations should have tests through the Working Group managed test suite.

Each specification should contain sections detailing all known security and privacy implications for implementers, Web authors, and end users.

This Working Group expects to follow the TAG Web Platform Design Principles.

Coordination

For all specifications, this Working Group will seek horizontal review for accessibility, internationalization, privacy, and security with the relevant Working and Interest Groups, and with the TAG. Invitation for review must be issued during each major standards-track document transition, including FPWD. The Working Group is encouraged to engage collaboratively with the horizontal review groups throughout development of each specification. The Working Group is advised to seek a review at least 3 months before first entering CR and is encouraged to proactively notify the horizontal review groups when major changes occur in a specification following a review.

Additional technical coordination with the following Groups will be made, per the W3C Process Document:

W3C Groups

Decentralized Identifier Working Group
To ensure alignment with the DID Core, DID Resolution, and other relevant Working Group specifications.
Verifiable Credential Working Group
To ensure alignment with the Verifiable Credential, Data Integrity, and other relevant Working Group specifications.
Credentials Community Group
To ensure alignment with emerging technologies and features being incubated.

External Organizations

Decentralized Identity Foundation
To ensure alignment with blockchain and DHT-based DID Method standardization.
Trust Over IP Foundation
To ensure alignment with KERI-based DID Method standardization.
1EdTech Consortium
To ensure alignment with education technology standards utilizing DID Methods.

Participation

To be successful, this Working Group is expected to have 6 or more active participants for its duration, including representatives from the key implementors of this specification, and active Editors and Test Leads for each specification. The Chairs, specification Editors, and Test Leads are expected to contribute half of a working day per week towards the Working Group. There is no minimum requirement for other Participants.

The group encourages questions, comments and issues on its public mailing lists and document repositories, as described in Communication.

The group also welcomes non-Members to contribute technical submissions for consideration upon their agreement to the terms of the W3C Patent Policy.

Participants in the group are required (by the W3C Process) to follow the W3C Code of Conduct.

Communication

Technical discussions for this Working Group are conducted in public: the meeting minutes from teleconference and face-to-face meetings will be archived for public review, and technical discussions and issue tracking will be conducted in a manner that can be both read and written to by the general public. Working Drafts and Editor's Drafts of specifications will be developed in public repositories and may permit direct public contribution requests. The meetings themselves are not open to public participation, however.

Information about the group (including details about deliverables, issues, actions, status, participants, and meetings) will be available from the Working Group home page.

Most Working Group teleconferences will focus on discussion of particular specifications, and will be conducted on an as-needed basis.

This group primarily conducts its technical work on the public mailing list public-dmwg@w3.org (archive) or on each specification's Github repository. The public is invited to review, discuss and contribute to this work.

The group may use a Member-confidential mailing list for administrative purposes and, at the discretion of the Chairs and members of the group, for member-only discussions in special cases when a participant requests such a discussion.

Decision Policy

This group will seek to make decisions through consensus and due process, per the W3C Process Document (section 5.2.1, Consensus). Typically, an editor or other participant makes an initial proposal, which is then refined in discussion with members of the group and other reviewers, and consensus emerges with little formal voting being required.

However, if a decision is necessary for timely progress and consensus is not achieved after careful consideration of the range of views presented, the Chairs may call for a group vote and record a decision along with any objections.

To afford asynchronous decisions and organizational deliberation, any resolution (including publication decisions) taken in a face-to-face meeting or teleconference will be considered provisional. A call for consensus (CfC) will be issued for all resolutions (for example, via email, GitHub issue or web-based survey), with a response period of one week one week to 10 working days, depending on the chair's evaluation of the group consensus on the issue. If no objections are raised by the end of the response period, the resolution will be considered to have consensus as a resolution of the Working Group.

All decisions made by the group should be considered resolved unless and until new information becomes available or unless reopened at the discretion of the Chairs.

This charter is written in accordance with the W3C Process Document (Section 5.2.3, Deciding by Vote) and includes no voting procedures beyond what the Process Document requires.

Patent Policy

This Working Group operates under the W3C Patent Policy (Version of 15 September 2020). To promote the widest adoption of Web standards, W3C seeks to issue Web specifications that can be implemented, according to this policy, on a Royalty-Free basis. For more information about disclosure obligations for this group, please see the licensing information.

Patent Disclosures

The Working Group provides an opportunity to share perspectives on the topic addressed by this charter. W3C reminds Working Group participants of their obligation to comply with patent disclosure obligations as set out in Section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy. For more information about disclosure obligations for this group, please see the licensing information.

Licensing

This Working Group will use the W3C Software and Document license for all of its deliverables.

About this Charter

This charter has been created according to section 3.4 of the Process Document. In the event of a conflict between this document or the provisions of any charter and the W3C Process, the W3C Process shall take precedence.

Charter History

The following table lists details of all changes from the initial charter, per the W3C Process Document (section 4.3, Advisory Committee Review of a Charter):

Charter Period Start Date End Date Changes
Initial Charter 01 June 2025 01 June 2027 None

Change log

Changes to this document are documented in this section.