[MINUTES] CCG Incubation 2026-03-17

This meeting focused on finalizing the Community Group Report (CGR) and
preparing for the transition to a W3C Working Group. Key discussions
included reviewing and merging outstanding Pull Requests (PRs) for the
abstract and introduction sections, renaming the specification to
"Verifiable Credentials for Recognition," and outlining the next steps for
the transition to the W3C Verifiable Credentials Working Group (VCWG). The
group also touched upon the requirements for test suites, privacy and
security considerations, and the threat modeling process needed before a
horizontal review can commence.

*Topics Covered:*

   - *Pull Request Reviews:* The team discussed the need for reviews on PRs
   53, 54, and 55, specifically for the abstract and introduction of the
   specification, before publishing the CGR. Reviews were committed to within
   the next day or two.
   - *Specification Renaming:* The group agreed on renaming the
   specification to "Verifiable Credentials for Recognition" with a short name
   of "VC Recognition," and decided to implement this change via a separate PR
   and rename the repository.
   - *Community Group Report (CGR) Publication:* The report generation was
   put on hold until the renaming and abstract/introduction PRs are merged,
   with a plan to rebase and send out the updated report for Friday.
   - *Transition to W3C Verifiable Credentials Working Group (VCWG):* The
   meeting outlined the process of transitioning to an official W3C meeting,
   noting that membership requirements will apply and confirming that current
   attendees generally meet these criteria.
   - *W3C Working Group Requirements:* Discussions covered the immediate
   needs for the transition, including writing a primer for the spec, privacy
   and security considerations, and a new threat modeling process, all of
   which are significant tasks that will take weeks.
   - *Test Suite Development:* The group discussed the approach to
   developing a test suite, suggesting the utilization of VCOM to exercise the
   specification, including issuance and verification endpoints, and the
   potential for incorporating validation checks.

*Action Items:*

   - Ted Thibodeau Jr. to review PRs 53, 54, and 55 by close of business
   tomorrow.
   - Manu Sporny to create and merge a PR for renaming the specification to
   "Verifiable Credentials for Recognition" and rename the repository.
   - Benjamin Young to rebase the CGR with the merged PRs and prepare it
   for distribution by Friday.
   - Manu Sporny to raise issues for the horizontal review requirements,
   including privacy considerations, security considerations, and the threat
   model, once the work transitions to the VCWG.
   - The team to begin planning and developing the test suite for the
   specification, potentially using VCOM.

Text: https://meet.w3c-ccg.org/archives/w3c-ccg-ccg-incubation-2026-03-17.md

Video:
https://meet.w3c-ccg.org/archives/w3c-ccg-ccg-incubation-2026-03-17.mp4
*CCG Incubation - 2026/03/17 10:57 EDT - Transcript* *Attendees*

+1 864-***-**52, Benjamin Young, Dave Longley, Dmitri Zagidulin, Manu
Sporny, Parth Bhatt, Phillip Long, Ted Thibodeau Jr
*Transcript*

Benjamin Young: Yeah, my incoming audio is pretty terrible, so I may have
to switch onto the data network. I'm going to dial out and dial back in.

+1 864-***-**52: Keep going back Come on.

Dave Longley: So, we heard your audio, Benjamin. Do you think you'll be
able to run through the agenda from there in your situation or

Manu Sporny: No audio.

Manu Sporny: while we wait for Benjamin's audio things to be sorted, there
are a number of PRs that we need reviews on before we can merge them. So,
we asked for reviews last week, but we have not gotten enough to merge for
some reason, Ted, I can't ping you on reviews for this repo. I need to
figure out why that's the case.

Manu Sporny: But if we look at these PRs here it would be good to have
reviews on those PRs specifically before we publish the FCGR …

Ted Thibodeau Jr: In a worst case, if you just tag me, they should show up
in my notifications.

Manu Sporny: yeah, I need to figure out why I can't tag you in the
reviewers list, but I think you did a review on one of them, Ted. but I
don't think I tagged you on the other ones.
00:05:00

Manu Sporny: It's PR 53, 54, and 55 that we need.

Ted Thibodeau Jr: Okay, I will make them open tabs now and…

Ted Thibodeau Jr: I will try to get to them in the next day or so.

Manu Sporny: Okay, thank you very much. yeah. can you hear us now?
Benjamin. Yep.

Benjamin Young: Yes, I can. And hopefully you can hear me now.

Manu Sporny: Yeah. Much better.

Benjamin Young: Yeah, sorry about all that. Finally defaulted to the cell
network over Google Meet because the phone call thing was a total bust. I
could just hear whispering from you guys. So sorry about that. I am
assuming I have an update for the U specification itself moving our final
graph community group report that is ready …

Ted Thibodeau Jr: Goodbye.

Benjamin Young: but I'm not sure what else remains on the docket other than
that major transition point and making sure we all have our IP agreement
signed and everything like that. did you have more you wanted to discuss
today, Mike?

Manu Sporny: I said this while you were disconnected, but we just need
reviews on some of the PRs. Ideally, we get these PRs in before we do the
FCGR because they're PRs for the abstract and the introduction. which would
be nice to have that in there when we publish the CG report. so I apologize
for this Ted, but I don't know if it would be possible. there's an order of
operations here. We have to publish our document and then it gets frozen
for all of time in the CG reports directory and then the chairs publish it.

Manu Sporny: I would like us to see if we can get the abstract and intro
in. but if you don't feel like you'd be able to get to that, TED, then by,
let's say, close of business tomorrow, then we should just move forward
with the FCGR.

Manu Sporny: So I think that that's the kind of Okay.

Ted Thibodeau Jr: If that's part of the reviewing that you were talking
about,…

Ted Thibodeau Jr: that's no problem. If it's text that I need to draft,
that will take me longer.

Manu Sporny: No, no, not text you Just need your beautiful past that you
always do over what's been written to see if there's, clarity that we can
bring.

Manu Sporny: Okay. Thank you very much.

Ted Thibodeau Jr: I should be able to do that pretty quick.

Manu Sporny: And then once you do that and we get reviews in from at least
ideally other people Phil Dmitri I think Dave's done a pass then we need
reviews period on 55 I think PR 55 actually no Dave's done a pass on that
one. once we have that then we can merge and move forward with a fairly
complete front and middle section of the document I think. okay. So maybe
that's the plan is let's do those reviews and we do still need to talk
about the SCGR.

Manu Sporny: I think Benjamin today and then establish the plan for
publication and then I think that's just the call today.

Dave Longley: I guess this means that the renaming of the spec is also not
going to make the cut for the community group Report.

Benjamin Young: Yeah, go ahead, Manu. I was going to fast

Manu Sporny: I unfortunately have not had the time to send that poll out.
Unless we can agree to a name today, then no, that's not going to happen
before it goes out.

Dave Longley: Let's propose we had the three names.

Manu Sporny: Plus one did that.

Dave Longley: Let's put them up and if this group agrees it's really no
different from what is on the title now. I suggest we go forward with
whatever if we can agree to something today, let's put that on there and
use that. going forward. And we can still rename that and retitle it in the
working group if people want to do
00:10:00

Manu Sporny: Benjamin, up to you to figure out where that goes in the
agenda.

Benjamin Young: Yeah. I don't want to fall down a bike shedding rabbit
hole,…

Benjamin Young: but I do feel like we've gotten really close to a name last
couple calls and a verifiable recognition credential I think was the one
that was rending. It' I think the bottom of the list on that issue. is
anyone opposed to that name? Because again we had all kind of trended that
direction on the last couple calls. but I do feel like we can name it as
easily as we can stick with the current name.

Benjamin Young: Go ahead, Dave. can we make it plural?

Dave Longley: Yeah, that name works for me.

Dave Longley: My only and if that's what we have, consensus on here, I'm
totally fine with it. I would just say I would be worried that if we needed
to put any other credentials in the spec, it would make it seem like
there's just one credential in the spec. That's my only concern with that
name. But I'm happy for that to be the name now.

Benjamin Young: So, it's one or more. Any objections to verifiable
recognition credentials with an S.

Dave Longley: That sounds better to me.

Dmitri Zagidulin: No, it seems great.

Benjamin Young: That was probably the easiest bike shedding call we've ever
had, yall. Not that it wasn't months in the making.

Dmitri Zagidulin: Yeah. Damn.

Benjamin Young: Yeah, that's kind of cheating because we did work on it for
quite a while, but that is maybe a record. So, I think for those actions to
happen, I can obviously rename the spec in the final community group report
thing or we maybe should do it as a separate PR ahead of that and I can
rebase the report one on top of it and any of the other abstracts and
things that are coming. manage.

Manu Sporny: Let's do it as a separate PR. Let me raise it right now so we
can weigh in on it on the call.

Benjamin Young: Yeah. Yeah, that'd be great. That sounds great.

Manu Sporny: I'll do that.

Benjamin Young: And then there's also the action to rename the repo, but
maybe we don't do that and then rename it when we move it. I don't know. I
could see it falling out either way pretty fine.

Manu Sporny: Let's rename it now because it'll get stuck in the name of the
spec. It'll get stuck like we have to use the Yep.

Benjamin Young: Yeah, It's too much plumbing on the other side.

Manu Sporny: Right. checking I can do that.

Benjamin Young: Yeah, that sounds fine. Do you have power to do that or is
this a chair Awesome. I know I do not. So

Manu Sporny: Yes, I have admin rights on the repo.

Ted Thibodeau Jr: I hesitate to do this because everybody already agreed to
it and so did I'm just turning in my head. Verifiable credentials for
recognition. my thought is that these are still verifiable credentials and…

Manu Sporny: I'm pausing because it sounds goodish.

Benjamin Young: Yeah, I'm on the ish spectrum as anyone have feel 2

Dmitri Zagidulin: The four part doesn't quite sound right.

Ted Thibodeau Jr: they are for the purposes of recognition. There's no
specific change that we're making, I don't think, aside from the particular
attributes that are intended to be here or…

Manu Sporny: The short name would end up being recognition. In that case,
we've been asked to not Well,…

Ted Thibodeau Jr: wreck hug.

Manu Sporny: yeah, sure. I Yeah.

Ted Thibodeau Jr: It's a short name.

Manu Sporny: Yeah. I'm concerned about snatching, defeat from the jaws of
victory. I would be fine with verifiable credentials for recognition, but
if there's opposition to that,…

Ted Thibodeau Jr: We're going.

Manu Sporny: I'd be fine with us using verifiable recognition credentials.
Remember, we can rename this later. this is not the final time, it's not
like, this name will stick for the CCG version of the spec and what we
publish, but once we get to the VCWG, we can change it again.

Manu Sporny: I'm slightly favoring verifiable credentials for recognition
because it addresses Dave's concern. it doesn't sound like it would cause
create other issues, but clearly I'm also concerned about Dimmitri your
concerns. okay.

Dmitri Zagidulin: That's That's fine. let's go with it. we can revisit if
needed.
00:15:00

Manu Sporny: I'm going to start typing stuff up and see if something feels
off to me.

Ted Thibodeau Jr: That's fine.

Manu Sporny: So, verifiable credentials for recognition version 0.99. The
short name recognition. Ted, I'm going to prefer the long name because,
RCOG for whatever reason some people might be confused by that. though they
shouldn't be. and it follows our other kind of naming patterns
BC-regnition. This is sounding nice.

Manu Sporny: and verifiable credentials for recognition version 0.9
recognition is the suggested name. Create new branch. Rename the
specification more accurate.

Manu Sporny: this let's see create new branch you see C this PR renames the
specification to see verifiable credentials for recognition with a short
name of UC recognition create PR.

Manu Sporny: So if you go to poll 58 that's in there now I will ping why
can I not pick you and then let's see Dry David I'm just tagging people for
review big blue and else Who else? Okay, there's a chunk that I tagged.

Manu Sporny: All And then if other folks can put in their plus one minus
one on that,…

Manu Sporny: that means we'll be able to merge rapidly.

Benjamin Young: And my laptop's still disconnected,…

Benjamin Young: but consider me a plus one.

Manu Sporny: Okay. Benjamin, let's see.

Manu Sporny: Big Blue had noted a plus one on. All right. And then Ted,…

Phillip Long: I already gave my plus one.

Manu Sporny: I don't know if I haven't pinged you It's the links in the
chat channel. And Dimmitri, if we can get a plus one from you, that'll help
us merge this.

Manu Sporny: Okay, Thank All right, there we go. Easy peasy. Hopefully we
don't wake up in a cold sweat tonight and think we've made some horrible
mistake. have. I think this is a good name.

Manu Sporny: Back over to you, Benjamin.

Benjamin Young: Yeah, thanks everybody.

Benjamin Young: I think that's still on the record as one of the faster
name change moments. So, thanks everybody and thank you Ted for the 11th
hour input. so I think what's ahead is a PR from TED on the abstract stuff
and the sort of rebasing and everything of the report. Am I missing another
thing? Because I felt like there were more than two. Yeah.
00:20:00

Manu Sporny: I think just establishing a timeline. So, what are we doing
and what's the timeline?

Benjamin Young: So the report should not be done should not be generated…

Ted Thibodeau Jr: guess next couple days.

Benjamin Young: until after these other two the renaming and the abstract.
Ted, what's your guesstimate at abstract writing or do you have a reviewing?

Manu Sporny: Not writing, reviewing.

Benjamin Young: My Yeah, that should be okay. then what we can probably do
if you can hang us on the issue or on the PR that's pending for generating
the report I can then rebase all that and get it all prepped again for
Friday and then we can get that emailed out to the CCG again that it's
really ready to go.

Benjamin Young: I put those report things up as drafts because I figured
there was this kind of house cleaning to do. That'd be awesome. is there
anything else we should try and tackle in the next little bit?

Benjamin Young: Go ahead.

Manu Sporny: I guess …

Manu Sporny: what happens after this is transferred to verifiable
credential working group. we have 14 issues many of which are ready for I
guess change document title is exists now. I think we just need people to
raise PRs. sorry, I'm finding out that we don't have a exists label.

Manu Sporny: and so once we transition this work into W3C into the VCWG,
these calls, this one that we're currently on will transition into an
official W3C verifiable credential working group call. I think the plan is
to not change the time, not change the meeting link. Everything stays the
same basically, except we will become now an official meeting, of this work
at the W3C, which means everyone that joins is going to have to be a W3C
member or an invited expert or something of that nature, right?

Manu Sporny: which shouldn't be an issue because I think Demetri I think
you're in as an IE or I don't know if through MITC and Phil I think you're
in through SEO is that correct Okay.

Phillip Long: That is correct for me. I've been taught that the voting
membership individual was transferred from KGI to heate me for this.

Manu Sporny: You broke up a ton on me, Phil, but I think I got the gist,
which was you are associated with the W3C member. and then Dimmitri, are
you in the VCWG as an IE or something else?

Dmitri Zagidulin: I am. Yes.

Manu Sporny: Okay, And then Ted, you're with Open Link. and then DB is a
W3C member. So, we should be fine. The only issue might be with if Isaac
Henderson wants to join, although he's with Frownhoffer, isn't he? And
frownhoffer is a W3C member. I can't remember. and then if David Chadwick
wants to join, I think he's not going to, but I think he was an IE for the
group. So, I think we should be good as far as making sure continuity for
the people participating.

Manu Sporny: Isaac's the only one that we'd have to figure out if it works
for him or not. Sorry, Benjamin.

Benjamin Young: No,…

Benjamin Young: I was just going to ask about test suites and things. I
mean, it's always a major component of becoming a working group. I think
this one as I understand it the VC data model is we're not defining an API
we're just defining types of credentials. but I didn't know if we had a
good sense beyond that if it's really just checking the shape of the JSON
or if we need to do more in this case or if anybody has a good feel for
that. That's it. Go ahead.
00:25:00

Manu Sporny: Before we do a test suite though, we've got multiple gates
that we need to go through at W3C per the process. One of the first
semi-anoying gates is the u write a primer for your spec thing so that tag
can review it. we've gotten that kind of pushed back to we can put things
in the spec that explain why the spec exists. so that is work that needs to
be done before we can kick off a horizontal review.

Manu Sporny: And we do want to kick off a horizontal review pretty quickly
for this spec. I think it's in the right shape for us to request kind of
like a holistic review. we would need to write privacy considerations and
security considerations for the document. There is a new threat modeling
process now at W3C where we would have to write a threat model on this
spec. so we will want to pull in Joe, Andrew, and Simone for them to
suggest the best way for us to do that. and those two things significant
amount there's significant work, it's something that takes weeks to do for
each one of them.

Manu Sporny: so we should keep that in mind and we should probably raise
issues once it's in the working group on we need to create, the stuff for
horizontal review. we'll need to create a threat model. those things will
need to be done. and then on top of that, there will need to be a test
suite. Benjamin, I'm thinking for the test suite, we utilize VCOM to
exercise this test, which is what we're doing for every other test suite,
which is fine. But this is an interesting new thing that we could do with
VCOM.

Manu Sporny: in the verifiable presentation request we can list this work
as recognized in property. So I forget which call we did it in but we now
have this concept of recognized in as a requirement when you make the
request. So, you're like, "Hey, I would like to see a community college,
transcript from anyone that's recognized in this list." And then that's the
VPR that goes out and then the presentation that comes back needs to have,
one of these things. So, the test suite could be two endpoints.

Manu Sporny: One of them is the issuance of such a credential. And then the
next thing is requesting the very credential that was just issued or
potentially issuing three different types of credential but only one of
them is in the list and…

Manu Sporny: the other two I think that that is the thing that kind of
demonstrates that, we've got that's the core of the test suite here. go
ahead, Benjamin.

Benjamin Young: So the typical pattern is as you described with the VCOM
API with essentially just an issue and… a verify endpoint. but I do think
in this case the ri VPR, the request that goes out is more nuanced in the
test that we get back because we're not just going to take the response
rather there's more to do besides just is this a legit credential in terms
of checking more of its contents. But that still fits well within how we've
done things.

Benjamin Young:

Benjamin Young: So, it doesn't currently sound a lot more complicated than
the BCDM tests as far as I can tell.

Manu Sporny: Yes, plus one of that. And I'm going to wonder if it There's a
part of it that's more complicated because we're doing validation, right? I
think it's okay. I don't think we've ever done validation in any other test
suite. and I think for the workflow it's fine. Go ahead, Dave.
00:30:00

Dave Longley: Yeah, there would be two ways to accomplish so the test suite
is functioning as a coordinator in VCOM and it would pull whatever was
submitted to the exchange that would be based off of a workflow and it
could take a look at what was submitted and the coordinator in the test
suite would do this check to see if the submitted VC matched this
recognized in credential. So that is one way to do it. That's probably to
The other way to do it is ask implementers to build that check into their
workflows.

Benjamin Young: sounds good. Devil's in the details as always, but it's at
least a walkable path and we can see where we end up once we start walking
Anybody else have thoughts about this transition or anything else you want
to talk about today? If not, I'm sure we can benefit from 20 minutes. Okay.
thanks everybody for coming and thanks in advance for your review and I'll
watch for a ping on that and then I'll get my stuff rebased and I'll go
from there.

Benjamin Young: Thanks all. Bye.
Meeting ended after 00:31:40 👋

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