lfg2025/archy

Dorian eed4bc7211 feat: identity lifecycle tests and ADR-011 DWN deprioritization

Added 8 integration tests for identity manager covering create,
sign/verify, list, delete, default management, and Nostr key gen.
Documented DWN deprioritization decision.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

2026-03-15 05:01:06 +00:00

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ADR-011: DWN Deprioritization

Status

Accepted

Context

TBD/Block shut down in November 2024, donating Web5 code to the Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF). The DWN (Decentralized Web Node) specification was heavily backed by TBD — without their engineering team, the spec has lost momentum:

No maintained Rust DWN SDK exists (the dwn crate by unavi-xyz is v0.4.0 with 323 downloads)
TBD's reference implementation was TypeScript-only
DIF has not allocated resources to continue DWN development
The spec itself is complex (personal data stores with protocol-based access control)

Meanwhile, Archipelago's federation over Tor + Nostr relays already serves the core peer data sync use case that DWN was intended for.

Decision

Keep existing DWN store code in core/archipelago/src/network/dwn_store.rs — it works for peer file catalogs and federation state
Stop calling it "Web5 DWN" in user-facing text — it's our custom implementation, not a full DWN spec implementation
Do not invest in DWN spec compliance — the spec is stalled and may not stabilize
Prioritize Nostr + federation for peer discovery and data exchange
Re-evaluate if DIF produces a viable Rust SDK or the spec gains new maintainers

Consequences

DWN functionality remains available but is not actively developed
Peer sync uses federation + Nostr instead of DWN protocols
Reduces maintenance burden — no need to track a stalled spec
If DWN resurfaces with strong tooling, we can adopt it later

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