Credentials
credentialSchema
A W3C VC 2.0 field pointing at an external JSON Schema describing the credential's data structure — lets verifiers check shape conformance.
W3C Verifiable Credentials can declare a credentialSchema field that points at an external JSON Schema URL. Verifiers download the schema, validate the credential's structure against it, and reject credentials that don't conform. This is orthogonal to cryptographic verification — cryptographically-valid credentials can still fail schema conformance.
LearnCoin plans to host a JSON Schema for LearnCoin credentials at schema.learncoin.me/v1/credential.json, which credentials will reference via the credentialSchema field. It's on the roadmap alongside the LearnCoin extension JSON-LD context. Once shipped, third-party tooling can programmatically validate that a credential matches the expected LearnCoin shape — field presence, cardinality, type constraints — without LearnCoin-specific code.
Hosting constraints are strict: the URL must be stable, immutable per version, and year-long-cacheable. Schema churn silently breaks verification.
Related terms