Updating existing DIDs with cheqd Cosmos CLI

The purpose of this document is to describe how an existing DID (and associated DIDDoc) can be updated using the cheqd-node Cosmos CLI.

NOTE: The procedures below are only recommended for development purposes!

Using cheqd-node Cosmos CLI for real-world production usage is not recommended, since the identity keys are passed in raw form to the CLI. This is fine in development/testing usage, but is not recommend for mainnet.

Developers are encouraged to use production-grade CLI tools such as Veramo SDK for cheqd or look at our developer guide on how to integrate custom applications.

Setup

Pre-Requisites

• Learn how to create a DID with cheqd Cosmos CLI

• Query an existing DID/DIDDoc with cheqd Cosmos CLI

Assumptions

• Given this procedure below is intended for development/training purposes, we assume that the user stores their public/private keys safely during the DID creation process and has access to it.

• Updating a DIDDoc requires the full updated DIDDoc to be sent. Only the updated/changed parts cannot be sent. This accounts for scenarios where the DIDDoc may have been updated on ledger, but the local copy is not synced with the latest changes.

Update an existing DID

1. Update the DIDDoc contents / body

Use a text editor like nano to edit the body of the DIDDoc (the example below assumes it's saved in a file called payload.json).

nano payload.json

For example, we can take the DIDDoc created previously and change the Service Endpoint from bar.example.com to foo.example.com:

{
  "id": "did:cheqd:testnet:b0ca0b75-ca6a-4674-a261-45f6dd0c9c77",
  "verificationMethod": [
    {
      "id": "did:cheqd:testnet:b0ca0b75-ca6a-4674-a261-45f6dd0c9c77#key1",
      "type": "Ed25519VerificationKey2018",
      "controller": "did:cheqd:testnet:b0ca0b75-ca6a-4674-a261-45f6dd0c9c77",
      "publicKeyBase58": "4Q41kvWsd1JAuPFBff8Dti7P6fLbPZe3Nmod35uua9TE"
    }
  ],
  "authentication": [
    "did:cheqd:testnet:b0ca0b75-ca6a-4674-a261-45f6dd0c9c77#key1"
  ],
  "service": [{
    "id":"did:cheqd:testnet:b0ca0b75-ca6a-4674-a261-45f6dd0c9c77#linked-domain",
    "type": "LinkedDomains",
    "serviceEndpoint": [
      "https://foo.example.com"
    ]
  }]
}

2. Compile the payload

As in flow with creating DID-Document we need to compile payload.json file with private key inside and pass it to the CLI. The result JSON in our example will look liks:

{
  "payload": {
    "id": "did:cheqd:testnet:b0ca0b75-ca6a-4674-a261-45f6dd0c9c77",
    "verificationMethod": [
      {
        "id": "did:cheqd:testnet:b0ca0b75-ca6a-4674-a261-45f6dd0c9c77#key1",
        "type": "Ed25519VerificationKey2018",
        "controller": "did:cheqd:testnet:b0ca0b75-ca6a-4674-a261-45f6dd0c9c77",
        "publicKeyBase58": "4Q41kvWsd1JAuPFBff8Dti7P6fLbPZe3Nmod35uua9TE"
      }
    ],
    "authentication": [
      "did:cheqd:testnet:b0ca0b75-ca6a-4674-a261-45f6dd0c9c77#key1"
    ],
    "service": [{
      "id":"did:cheqd:testnet:b0ca0b75-ca6a-4674-a261-45f6dd0c9c77#linked-domain",
      "type": "LinkedDomains",
      "serviceEndpoint": [
        "https://foo.example.com"
      ]
    }]
  },
  "signInputs": [
    {
      "verificationMethodId": "did:cheqd:testnet:b0ca0b75-ca6a-4674-a261-45f6dd0c9c77#key1",
      "privKey": "wNXCJ9Ny0uzCYhnTE3gfQuwgQM4QZCw08+j01QDfoGxMMI9u9GIv/90eH3E3KjHjlSi9hKRQy94PvKVAH1+Rhw=="
    }
  ]
}

3. Send an update DID transaction to the ledger

Send the updated DIDDoc to the ledger. This must be signed with the correct identity keys:

cheqd-noded tx cheqd update-did <Payload_in_JSON>  \
  --from <cosmos_account> --node <url> --chain-id <chain> --fees <fee>

Flags

• Payload_in_JSON - previously compiled JSON.

• --from: Cosmos account key which will pay fees for the transaction to be written to ledger.

• --node: IP address or URL of node to send request to

• --chain-id: E.g., cheqd-testnet-6

• --fees: Set to 25000000000ncheq, which is the fixed fee for updating a DID

Note that each of cheqd's on-ledger identity transactions has a fixed fee, the pricing for cheqd DIDs and DID-Linked Resources can be found here. If your account has insufficient balance the transaction will fail.

Example

cheqd-noded tx cheqd update-did "payload.json" \
  --from my_account --node http://rpc.cheqd.network:443 --chain-id cheqd-testnet-6 --fees 25000000000ncheq