About Resolver

The resolver is a foundational service in the Vidos ecosystem that translates decentralized identifiers (DIDs) into their corresponding DID documents. Operating according to the W3C DID Resolution specification, the resolver functions as a specialized lookup service that retrieves key material and other identity information essential for verification processes.

Why use a resolver?

The resolver translates decentralized identifiers (DIDs) into cryptographic material needed for verification, enabling the Verifier to verify digital signatures, credentials, and claims.

What is a resolver?

Given a DID as input, the resolver returns a standardized DID Document and associated metadata. This enables applications to work with decentralized identifiers across various networks and identity systems.

Resolver architecture

The resolver in Vidos has two main components that work together to provide resolution services:

Resolver Service: The core implementation that handles the DID resolution process according to the W3C specification
Resolver Management Service: Enables configuration and management of resolver instances for different needs

Vidos supports creating multiple resolver instances, each with its own configuration, to support different verification requirements within your organization. For detailed steps on creating instances, see the instance creation guides.

flowchart TD
    A[Applications] --> B[Resolver Instance]
    B --> C[Resolver Core]
    C --> D[DID Method Resolvers]
    D --- D1[did:key]
    D --- D2[did:web]
    D --- D3[did:jwk]
    D --- D4[did:....]

Use cases

Credential verification
User authentication
Programmatic API access
Authorization and access control
Message encryption
Identity system linking
Provides a consistent response format regardless of the underlying identity system
Integrates with Verifier and Authorizer services to enable comprehensive trust solutions

By providing a standardized way to retrieve identity information from various decentralized systems, the resolver enables the interoperability and trust needed for decentralized verification workflows. The Resolver also supports DID URL dereferencing for accessing resources linked to DIDs. See the Resolver Configuration Reference for detailed configuration options.