Temporary and stable schemas
When working with credential schemas, it's helpful to distinguish between two types based on their intended use: temporary and stable. The type of schema you use depends on whether you are in an active development phase or building a production-ready solution.
Temporary schemas
A temporary schema is a schema that has an adjusted lifecycle specifically aimed at removing obstacles during the active development phase. Such schemas allow any type of changes to their definition without requiring explicit publication until you are ready to finalize your credential data model.
While these schemas are great for early development phases, they are not suitable for interoperability with the external world as their semantics are sacrificed for the development speed.
Stable schemas
Unlike temporary schemas, a stable schema complies with strict governance rules that enable provenance and sharing. Without these rules, relying parties (those who verify and process the data) would find it difficult to adopt schemas and the credentials issued with them.
Stable schemas are essential for production. Their immutability and public discoverability are foundational for building trust and ensuring that all parties can reliably verify a credential's integrity over time.
Comparison: temporary and stable schemas
| Attribute | Temporary Schema | Stable Schema |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Prototyping and testing | Production and interoperability |
| Identifier | Temporary ID or auto-generated slug | Human-readable slug and version |
| Provenance | None | History of changes by version |
| Semantics | Limited to machine readable | Human readable, easy to understand and integrate |
Further reading
- Schema publication and versioning - understand core concepts behind credential schema publishing and versioning.
- Manage schemas - get hands-on with creating, publishing, and versioning schemas.