did:cel libraries and tools released

Hi all,

We are doing an initial public release of the did:cel libraries,
tools, and updated specification.

did:cel is a fully decentralized DID Method that is built on top of
cryptographic event logs. It has no dependencies on DNS, requiring
only IP and basic HTTP to operate. It supports change history, forking
protection, and is an attempt to live up to the "fully self-sovereign"
goal of DIDs. Change history is achieved without the need for web
domains nor blockchains.

The updated specification can be found here:

https://w3c-ccg.github.io/did-cel-spec/

An implementation of a did:cel software library can be found here:

https://github.com/digitalbazaar/didcel/

A command line interface and did:cel tooling are available here:

https://github.com/digitalbazaar/did-cel-tools/

It uses the hmbd oblivious witnessing service to perform event witnessing:

https://github.com/digitalbazaar/hmbd

An example of a published did:cel log can be found here:

https://msporny.github.io/cels/dids/did:cel:zW1mH6eRGUmQPXwuh7TvpE2yEvM1kUSuSbg2tW6tEmnDFiM.cel.gz

You can resolve the did:cel DID above via the did:cel CLI (available
in did-cel-tools):

$ ./didcel
Encryption password:
Re-enter encryption password:
did:cel> resolve did:cel:zW1mH6eRGUmQPXwuh7TvpE2yEvM1kUSuSbg2tW6tEmnDFiM
Storage URL (ending in "/"): https://msporny.github.io/cels/dids/
resolve: fetching
https://msporny.github.io/cels/dids/did:cel:zW1mH6eRGUmQPXwuh7TvpE2yEvM1kUSuSbg2tW6tEmnDFiM.cel.gz
resolve: valid CEL with 4 event(s):
did:cel:zW1mH6eRGUmQPXwuh7TvpE2yEvM1kUSuSbg2tW6tEmnDFiM (read-only)
did:cel> ls
did:cel:zW1mH6eRGUmQPXwuh7TvpE2yEvM1kUSuSbg2tW6tEmnDFiM
  @context: https://www.w3.org/ns/did/v1.1 https://w3id.org/didcel/v1
  heartbeatFrequency: P1M
  heartbeat: zW1btJjee2s55MfaGaa7bxM8DkqDDWVek6V53AqXHNgFtD4
  authentication: Multikey#zDn...a25M
did:cel>

I expect there to be bugs-a-plenty, so treat all of this as experimental.

Interested in questions and feedback from the community about the
general approach and/or features that would be nice to have.

Happy independence day to anyone that celebrates that sort of thing. :)

-- manu

-- 
Manu Sporny - https://www.linkedin.com/in/manusporny/
Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
https://www.digitalbazaar.com/

Received on Saturday, 4 July 2026 12:55:13 UTC