RFC-001 Implementation Backlog

March 29, 2026 · View on GitHub

Objective

Translate the findings from RFC-001-Compliance-Checklist into implementable work with priority, dependencies, and verifiable acceptance criteria.

Epic P1 — Robust RFC-001 Conformance

P1-01 — DID Document Evolution (updateDidDocument)

Problem: The RFC requires persistent identity with mutable state, but the SDK did not expose document update/versioning.

Technical Scope:

  • Add updateDidDocument(did, patch) API in AgentIdentity.
  • Validate that id remains stable and updated changes.
  • Allow updates to agentMetadata (including hashes and capabilities).

Acceptance Criteria:

  1. Public typed method exists in the SDK.
  2. Tests cover successful update and rejection for non-existent/revoked DIDs.
  3. resolve(did) returns updated document version.

Dependencies: None.

Status: ✅ Completed.

P1-02 — Multiple verificationMethod Support + Key Rotation

Problem: verifySignature initially used only verificationMethod[0]; no rotation policy existed.

Technical Scope:

  • Extend model for multiple active keys.
  • Add rotation API (rotateVerificationMethod or equivalent).
  • Update verifier to select key by keyid or controlled fallback.

Acceptance Criteria:

  1. Verification works for new active key.
  2. Revoked/obsolete key fails verification.
  3. Tests cover at least 2 rotation cycles.

Dependencies: P1-01.

Status: ✅ Completed.

P1-03 — Document Anchoring in Registry (documentUri/documentHash)

Problem: The RFC requires an on-chain reference to the document; the contract needed to store it.

Technical Scope:

  • Extend AgentRegistry.sol with documentUri or documentHash.
  • Update ABI/adapters (EvmAgentRegistry, EthersAgentRegistryContractClient).
  • Register reference from create and update it from updateDidDocument.

Acceptance Criteria:

  1. getAgentRecord returns document reference.
  2. Smoke test verifies create + resolve using on-chain reference.
  3. ABI compatibility documented (contract versioning).

Dependencies: P1-01.

Status: ✅ Completed.

Epic P2 — Production and Interoperability

P2-01 — Production Universal Resolver (RPC + IPFS + Cache)

Problem: Default in-memory resolver does not meet the operational interoperability objective.

Technical Scope:

  • Create UniversalResolverClient with:
    • resolution by DID to on-chain record,
    • off-chain document fetch,
    • TTL cache.
  • Maintain InMemoryDIDResolver for tests/local.

Acceptance Criteria:

  1. Resolution works for DIDs not created in the local process.
  2. Basic cache metrics (hit/miss) available.
  3. Integration tests with network mock adapter.

Dependencies: P1-03.

Status: ✅ Completed.

P2-02 — Temporal Normalization (ISO vs Unix)

Problem: SDK uses ISO-8601 and contract uses Unix-string.

Technical Scope:

  • Define canonical format (recommended: ISO-8601 in document, Unix in contract with explicit conversion).
  • Add utility converters and format validations.

Acceptance Criteria:

  1. Temporal rule documented in RFC + checklist.
  2. No ambiguity in SDK types/serialization.
  3. Serialization/deserialization tests pass.

Dependencies: P1-03.

Status: ✅ Completed.

P2-03 — Automated MUST/SHOULD Conformance Suite

Problem: Conformance was documented but not automated in a pipeline.

Technical Scope:

  • Create conformance:rfc001 suite.
  • Map each MUST to a traceable test case.
  • Add summarized compliance output.

Acceptance Criteria:

  1. Pipeline reports status per control (PASS/PARTIAL/FAIL).
  2. Suite fails if any MUST fails.
  3. Execution evidence in local CI or workflow.

Dependencies: P1-01, P1-02, P1-03.

Status: ✅ Completed.

P2-04 — Cross-SDK Canonicalization and Shared Fixtures

Problem: TypeScript and Python reached feature parity, but document reference hashing and timestamp serialization still needed an explicit canonical contract to guarantee deterministic interoperability.

Technical Scope:

  • Canonicalize DID-document serialization before computing documentRef in both SDKs.
  • Normalize ISO timestamps to a shared UTC YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss.SSSZ format.
  • Move interop vectors to shared repository fixtures consumed by both SDK test suites.
  • Clarify local Python commands versus monorepo npm wrappers.

Acceptance Criteria:

  1. Equivalent DID documents produce the same documentRef in TypeScript and Python.
  2. Shared fixtures are consumed by both SDK test suites.
  3. Documentation explains the canonical Python workflow and the optional root-level wrappers.

Dependencies: P2-01, P2-02, P2-03.

Status: ✅ Completed.

  1. P1-01 ✅
  2. P1-02 ✅
  3. P1-03 ✅
  4. P2-01 ✅
  5. P2-02 ✅
  6. P2-03 ✅
  7. P2-04 ✅
  8. P3-01 ✅
  9. P3-02 ✅
  10. P3-03 ✅
  11. P3-04 ✅
  12. P3-05 ✅
  13. P3-06 ✅

Epic P3 — Post-Analysis Remediation

P3-01 — W3C Multibase Conformance

Problem: publicKeyMultibase used z + hex instead of the standard z + multicodec + Base58btc encoding.

Technical Scope:

  • Implement encodePublicKeyMultibase / decodePublicKeyMultibase using Ed25519 multicodec prefix 0xed01 + Base58btc.
  • Update create(), verifySignature(), rotateVerificationMethod() in both TS and Python SDKs.
  • Update shared interop fixtures.

Status: ✅ Completed.

P3-02 — Atomic Registration

Problem: create() generated identity and stored in registry as two separate steps. A failure between them could leave orphaned identities.

Technical Scope:

  • Wrap identity creation + registry storage in atomic operation.
  • Rollback on registry failure.

Status: ✅ Completed.

P3-03 — HTTP Anti-Replay Protection

Problem: HTTP signature verification lacked nonce and expiration validation.

Technical Scope:

  • Add created, expires, nonce to HTTP signature headers.
  • Validate timestamps and reject expired/future signatures.

Status: ✅ Completed.

P3-04 — Historical Signature Verification

Problem: After key rotation, signatures made with old keys could not be verified.

Technical Scope:

  • Add deactivated field to VerificationMethod (ISO-8601 timestamp).
  • rotateVerificationMethod() marks old keys as deactivated instead of removing them.
  • New verifyHistoricalSignature(did, payload, signature, keyId) searches all methods including deactivated.

Status: ✅ Completed.

P3-05 — Signer Abstraction Layer

Problem: create() returned raw private key hex. Production deployments need KMS/HSM/Vault integration.

Technical Scope:

  • AgentSigner interface/protocol with sign() and getPublicKey().
  • LocalKeySigner wrapping current behavior.
  • create(), signMessage(), signHttpRequest() accept optional signer.
  • Demo mode (no signer) works as before.

Status: ✅ Completed.

P3-06 — SSRF Hardening

Problem: HTTP validation only checked protocol scheme. No protection against loopback, private networks, or cloud metadata endpoints.

Technical Scope:

  • validateHttpTarget() helper blocking loopback, private, link-local, metadata, and embedded credentials.
  • allowPrivateTargets flag for dev/testing.
  • Integrated into HttpDIDDocumentSource, JsonRpcDIDDocumentSource, signHttpRequest().

Status: ✅ Completed.

Global Definition of Done

A task is considered closed when:

  1. Implementation merged into main branch.
  2. Associated unit/integration tests green.
  3. Documentation references updated (RFC, Checklist, README).
  4. Relevant smoke executed without regressions.