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Overview

Credentials consist of a set of claims which belong to a Claimer, are attested by an Attester, and that a Verifier can verify.

Credential Overview DiagramCredential Overview Diagram

To get a credential, a Claimer needs to take the following steps:

  1. Find a CType to base a claim on. Potential Attesters and Verifiers might advertise this information themselves.
  2. Make a claim containing a set of properties about themselves.
  3. Fulfil any requirement from your Attester. For example, accepting their Terms and paying a Quote.
  4. Request an attestation from the Attester.
  5. Wait for the Attester to attest claims.

Once attested, the wrapped claims are considered to be a valid credential.

To use a Credential, the Claimer can generate a Credential-Presentation for a Verifier. The verification would follow this process:

  1. The Verifier may request a Credential of a CType, along with with properties to reveal. He would also provide a challenge to ensure the presentations are not recycled.
  2. The Claimer selectively discloses the requested properties and signs them along with the challenge to generate a presentation.
  3. The Verifier verify the presentation structure, content and signature, and decides whether they trust the Attester of the presented credential.

The next sections describe each step in more detail.

info

To learn about how to implement the flow above in a dapp that interacts with a browser extension, read the Credential API specification.