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Agent Identity

W3C · DID 1.0 Recommendation; DID 1.1 Working Draft 2026 (do not implement 1.1)

Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) v1.0

W3C DID Core 1.0 Recommendation; DID 1.1 experimental

W3CStableIdentityAdjacent

Some agent-identity designs give each agent a DID instead of (or in addition to) an OAuth client_id or AAuth identifier. Resolution and key rotation become your problem.

At a glance

Problem
Identifiers that resolve to a document of verification methods and services without a single centralized registrar.
Identity / authn / authz
Identity. Authentication uses the keys in the DID document; authorization is out of scope (VCs, OAuth, etc.).

Actors

  • DID controller
  • DID subject
  • Resolver
  • Verifier

When this matters for agents

When this matters for agents: some designs give each agent a DID instead of (or in addition to) an OAuth client_id or AAuth identifier. Resolution and key rotation become your problem. DID 1.1 drafts in 2026 are experimental — implement DID Core 1.0. This is not AAuth two-party mode and not A2A.

Flow in plain language

Create a DID according to a method. Resolve to a DID document. Authenticate by proving control of a listed verification method.

Key tokens and claims

did:method:…
URI. Method specifies how to resolve and update.

Implementer notes

W3C's DID 1.1 draft in 2026 is explicitly experimental: implement 1.0. DID methods are not all equal; did:web is common for org agents, did:peer for pairwise.

Relationship to others

Primary sources