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Sentries, Confessionals, Vaults, and Envelopes

Introductory informative

Maintainer: Daniel Hardman · 2023-01-18 · checked 2026-10-15

A 2023 primer by Daniel Hardman that uses a medieval metaphor to distinguish four decentralized identity technologies often treated as rivals: OpenID Connect (OIDC), the Credential Handler API (CHAPI), Decentralized Web Nodes (DWNs) and DIDComm. It argues that they solve different problems and that interoperability work should draw boundaries between them rather than unify them. For people working in self-sovereign identity (SSI) and adjacent standards.

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