RecordWeb is an open composition architecture for institutionally provable information on the Web.
It assembles three W3C standards — DID, PROV-O, and VC — into a coherent protocol layer that makes institutional information attributable, versioned, and cryptographically verifiable, independent of the systems in which it is stored.
The Web made documents findable. Linked Data made facts linkable. RecordWeb makes institutional information provable.
RecordWeb defines a Record as the smallest semantically autonomous unit of institutional information — a building permit decision, a medical examination result, a parliamentary submission, a contract. Every Record in RecordWeb has:
- A permanent decentralised identity (
did:rwp) that survives system migrations - An immutable version graph in which every change creates a new cryptographically secured snapshot
- A provenance layer (PROV-O) that structurally encodes who produced what, when, and on the basis of what
- A tamper-evident proof (VC Data Model 2.0) that makes the Record verifiable without a central authority
RecordWeb is not a replacement for existing W3C standards. It is the missing composition — the protocol layer that connects DID, PROV-O, and VC into a deployable architecture for institutional information.
The RecordWeb specification was developed in two foundational documents, both published as defensive prior art on Zenodo:
| Document | Description | DOI |
|---|---|---|
| RWC — RecordWeb Concept | Conceptual foundations, design principles, relationship to archival science | 10.5281/zenodo.20475343 |
| RWP v0.1 — RecordWeb Protocol | Normative technical specification: DID format, snapshot structure, version graph, Cases, federation, payload deletion | 10.5281/zenodo.20475345 |
These documents are the single-author initial contribution by Nik Jenzer. They are explicitly intended as the foundation for a community-developed v1.0 — not as the conclusion of the specification process.
| Repository | Description | Status |
|---|---|---|
rwc |
RecordWeb Concept (RWC) - the primary report | Initial Editor's Draft — baseline from DOI 10.5281/zenodo.20475343 |
rwp |
RecordWeb Protocol (RWP) - the primary specification | Initial Editor's Draft — baseline from DOI 10.5281/zenodo.20475345 |
did-rwp |
did:rwp DID Method Specification |
Planned W3C CG deliverable |
poc-xyz |
Proof-of-Concept: several demonstrator, mocup, proofs, ... | Planned |
RecordWeb distinguishes two forms of participation:
Individuals who materially co-develop the RecordWeb specification — writing, reviewing, prototyping, and editing the technical documents. Contributors engage at the level of protocol design and implementation.
How to contribute: contact the chairs (planned: open an issue or pull request in the relevant repository. See CONTRIBUTING.md).
Institutions with a professional stake in RecordWeb — public administrations, hospitals, regulated organisations, universities, software vendors, and standards bodies. Members provide use cases, validate the specification against real-world requirements, participate in pilots, and adopt RecordWeb in their domain.
Members do not need to engage at the technical protocol level. Their expertise is domain knowledge: what institutional provability must achieve in practice.
Becoming a member: contact the chairs (planned: pen an issue in this repository using the Member Registration template).
RecordWeb is being developed as a W3C Community Group. The Community Group provides the open, international forum for collaborative specification development.
- W3C CG proposal: submitted to the W3C Credentials Community Group
- Chairs: Nik Jenzer · Melvin Carvalho
- Status: Formation phase — founding members welcome
The did:rwp DID method will be submitted to the W3C DID Specification Registries as a Community Group deliverable.
This organisation is governed by the RecordWeb Community Group. See CGCharter.md and GOVERNANCE.md for the decision-making model, roles, and process.
All specifications in this organisation are published under the W3C Software and Document License. Code is licensed under Apache 2.0.
- GitHub Issues: preferred for all technical and community questions
- Chairs: open an issue tagged
[chairs]for governance questions