KERI Protocol Specification Skill

KERI is a deterministic replicated state machine over a cryptographically rooted identifier namespace. It provides blockchain-equivalent security without global ordering, using append-only Key Event Logs (KELs), pre-rotation key commitments, and witness-based agreement (KAWA).

Architecture (7 Layers)

1. Identifier Theory — AIDs, SCIDs, autonomic namespaces
2. State Machine — KEL, key state, thresholds, rotation, delegation
3. Message Semantics — Events, receipts, field labels, seals, signing
4. Encoding — CESR native wire format (see cesr + cesr-encoding ref)
5. Validation Engine — Acceptance rules, duplicity, recovery
6. Availability — Witnesses, KAWA agreement
7. Discovery — OOBI, BADA, OKEA endpoint management

Message Types

KEL events: icp (inception), rot (rotation), ixn (interaction), dip (delegated inception), drt (delegated rotation). Receipt: rct. Routed: qry/rpy (query/reply), pro/bar (prod/bare — sealed data), xip/exn (exchange inception/exchange).

Reference Files