This document serves as an unofficial directory for all known Verifiable Credential specifications whether they are released by a global standards setting organization, a community group, an open source project, or an individual.

This document is not a formal registry nor is it intended to become a Registry Track document per the W3C Process.

Comments regarding this document are welcome. Please file issues directly on GitHub, or send them to public-vc-wg@w3.org ( subscribe, archives).

Introduction

This document serves as an unofficial directory for all known Verifiable Credential specifications whether they are released by a global standards setting organization, a community group, an open source project, or an individual.

Adding a Specification Entry

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.

Here is an example:

{
  "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 .
  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.

Specification Entry Format

The specification entry format MUST conform to the JSON Schema for a specification entry. Each field is documented below:

Field Description
name A short human readable name for the specification. For example: `Status List (v2021)`.
summary A one sentence description for the specification. For example: `A credential status list with herd privacy characteristics.`
specification An URL that resolves to a human readable specification. For example: `https://w3c.github.io/vc-status-list-2021/`.
category The Verifiable Credential extension category of the specification, which can be one of the following values: `credentialStatus`, `credentialSchema`, `evidence`, `media-type`, `securing`, `refreshService`, `termsOfUse`, or `vc`. For example: `credentialStatus`.

The extensions might define a `@type`. See [[JSON-LD11]].

maintainerName A person or organization which responds to contact requests. For example: `W3C Verifiable Credentials Working Group`.
maintainerEmail An email to send contact requests. For example: `public-vc-wg@w3.org`.
maintainerWebsite An website to send contact requests. For example: `https://www.w3.org/groups/wg/vc`.
vocabulary An array of URLs that contain machine-readable vocabulary information in yml2vocab or JSON-LD format. For example: `["https://raw.githubusercontent.com/w3c/vc-status-list-2021/main/contexts/v1.jsonld"]`.

Property-based Extensions

Credential Status

SpecificationDescription

Credential Schema

SpecificationDescription

Evidence

SpecificationDescription

Proof

See Section .

Refresh Service

SpecificationDescription

Terms of Use

SpecificationDescription

Type-based Extensions

SpecificationDescription

Securing Mechanisms

SpecificationDescription

Media Type Extensions

SpecificationDescription