The Identity Commitment is the cryptographic root of a LIVRE identity.

It binds:

• control & recovery keys
• attribute tree root
• policy tree root

into a single hash that can be referenced on-chain, off-chain, or across systems.

Commitment Structure

identity_commitment = H(
  version,
  keys_root,
  attributes_root,
  policies_root
)

Where:

• version – schema version for forward compatibility.
• keys_root – Merkle root of active keys.
• attributes_root – Merkle root of attributes (see Descriptors & Attributes).
• policies_root – Merkle root of policies.

This allows:

• local updates (e.g. adding an attribute)

  → only the attribute tree changes

• policy-only updates (e.g. new jurisdiction rule)

  → only the policy tree changes

• key rotation

  → keys_root changes, inner trees can remain the same

Key Tree

Each key is encoded as a leaf, and keys are grouped in a deterministic Merkle tree.

key_leaf = H(
  purpose,        // control | recovery | auth | app_session
  public_key,
  algo,
  created_at,
  expires_at?,
  status          // active | revoked | rotated
)

keys_root = MerkleRoot(
  sorted_by(purpose, key_id, [key_leaf_1, key_leaf_2, ...])
)