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The OpenID Foundation opened a self-certification programme for implementers of its agent Verifiable Credential (VC) profiles this week 1, allowing vendors to certify conformance to the identity framework proposed in the October 2025 whitepaper. The certification process covers credential issuance, presentation, and revocation workflows. Certified implementations receive a conformance mark for use in procurement documentation.
The self-certification programme uses a test suite hosted by the OpenID Foundation covering the full credential lifecycle. Implementations that pass all mandatory test vectors receive certification; optional test vectors cover extended features including partial delegation and time-bounded credential scopes.
The VC self-certification programme operationalises the framework first published in the October 2025 whitepaper 2. That document proposed extending OAuth 2.0 for agent delegation; the certification programme provides a testable conformance surface for those extensions in deployed products. The gap between whitepaper and certification programme — five months — reflects a faster-than-typical standards maturation cycle for an identity framework.
Identity is the second lane to record a second event in this tracking period, following Payments. The VC certification provides the first independently verifiable compliance mechanism in the agent identity layer; prior protocol publications from Google, Mastercard, and Visa did not include certification programmes at launch.
Self-certification launches for OpenID4VP, OpenID4VCI, and HAIP 1.0, enabling wallets and issuers in 38 jurisdictions to validate compliance with the VC credential specs.
OpenID Foundation