DID Indexing
DID indexing is how verifiable services (VSs) — and the DIDs that identify them — are discovered in v4: crawlers build searchable, trust-typed indexes directly over the VPR's Participant registry.
Earlier versions of Verana exposed a dedicated DID Directory: a separate database where anyone registered a DID for crawlers to index. That entity no longer exists. Discovery in v4 is built directly over the Participant registry. Content integrity is handled by a separate, unrelated primitive — see Digest.
DID Indexing over the Participant registry
The Participant registry is the foundation for building searchable indexes of verifiable services (VSs) and the verifiable metadata they expose. Crawlers iterate over Participant entries, resolve each service identifier (currently a DID, extensible in the future), verify that the service is a verifiable service, and extract its verifiable metadata — most notably the credentials presented through linked-vp — together with the ecosystem memberships, credential-schema permissions, and trust-deposit level associated with the controlling Corporation.
Everything a crawler needs is published as service entries of the DID Document: the LinkedVerifiablePresentation entries carrying the service's Essential Credential Schema credentials (#vpr-schemas-service-vtc-vp, plus #vpr-schemas-org-vtc-vp or #vpr-schemas-persona-vtc-vp), and the consumable endpoints (a mandatory DIDCommMessaging entry, and optionally MCP, A2A, or a website). See Trust Resolution for the full DID Document layout.
Unlike a traditional web index, this index is trust-typed: every entry carries cryptographically verifiable claims about what the service is, who operates it, and under which governance frameworks it is accredited. This unlocks discovery use cases that traditional search engines cannot serve.
Who consumes the index
- AI agents — before delegating a task or accepting a connection, an agent queries the index to find counterparts whose presented credentials match the capabilities required (e.g. a KYC issuer recognized by a target ecosystem, or an MCP-style service whose operator holds a recognized organization credential). It can restrict the search to a specific ecosystem or schema, and rank candidates by trust-deposit size, accreditations held, slashing history, or credential freshness. Because every indexed claim is anchored in the VPR, an agent can verify a counterpart end-to-end before interacting.
- Verifiable User Agents (VUAs) — social browsers, agentic browsers, and similar clients use the index to find content and services compatible with the user's context: "show only services accredited under ecosystem X", "show services that accept the credentials currently in my wallet", "show issuers of schema Y operating in jurisdiction Z". The result is a feed of VSs for which a proof of trust can be displayed to the user before connection.
- Search engines — trust-aware and traditional, form-based engines return ordinary links to VSs enriched with verifiable trust signals.
- Governance authorities, auditors, and analytics services — monitor accredited issuers, verifiers, and grantors; map the supply chain of trust behind a service or credential; and combine indexed metadata with on-chain history to produce reputational signals at the Corporation level.
An indexer can be run as a container alongside a locally deployed VPR node for total unlinkability, then power a familiar search prompt. Results are not biased nor manipulable, because they rely on verifiable data.