#1137: [wg/didmethods] DID Methods Working Group

Opened

Aug 14, 2025

This issue was created because the 'horizontal review requested' label was added to § https://github.com/w3c/strategy/issues/492

This review is requested prior to the Advisory Committee Review.

Charter Review

The goal of such a group would be to standardize some of the popular DID methods registered at https://www.w3.org/TR/did-extensions-methods/ .

Charter

Expected end of charter refinement phase: early July

diff from charter template

What kind of charter is this? Check the relevant box / remove irrelevant branches.

New WG

Horizontal Reviews: apply the Github label "Horizontal review requested" to request reviews for accessibility (a11y), internationalization (i18n), privacy, security, and TAG. Also add a "card" for this issue to the Strategy Funnel.

Communities suggested for outreach

In the past month, some discussions have been going on between some participants of the DID Working Group, the Credentials Community Group, and the Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF), about the creation of a W3C-DIF joint Working Group for the standardization of DID methods.

Known or potential areas of concern

As a reminder, the absence of standardized DID methods was a concern raised in the formal objections opposed to the publication of DID as a Recommendation. On the other hand, the DID Working Group insists that DID methods should not be standardized by the same group that defines the core of DIDs. This would, in the opinion of the group, give the wrong impression that some methods are better than others, which goes against the decentralized nature of DIDs.

Where would charter proponents like to see issues raised? (this strategy funnel issue, a different github repo, email, ...)

w3c/did-methods-wg-charter

Anything else we should think about as we review?

cc @peacekeeper @jrayback

Charter facilitator(s)

cc @pchampin