Core Concepts

Odal Node’s design follows three rules. Each section links to a fuller page.

Signed at the source, verified anywhere

The operator’s product data never reaches Odal. The manufacturer validates each passport on its own node, signs it with its own Ed25519 key, and stores it there. The node serves the signed passport: the product data the operator chose to publish, with each field bound to a signature and filtered by the reader’s access rights.

Verifying a passport needs only the signed passport and the manufacturer’s public did:web document. Odal does not need to be online, or to exist.

What Odal can and cannot see covers the data boundary in full.

Regulation in one part, operation in the other

Odal Node has two parts under two licences. The core is the regulatory library, open source under Apache-2.0: the rules a compliant passport must satisfy. The engine is the service that runs those rules in production, source-available under BSL-1.1 with a grant that allows self-hosting.

One rule decides where a change belongs. If it changes because an EU regulation changed, it goes in the core. If it changes because of how the system is deployed or operated, it goes in the engine. The engine depends on the core; the core does not depend on the engine.

Licensing covers what each licence allows.

One extension point for new regulation

Regulation arrives one product group at a time, and it keeps changing. The core has a single extension point for it: each product group’s compliance logic plugs in there, so new product groups and revised rules are added without changing anything around them. See Product groups & plugins.

The same mechanism for every product group

The extension point is part of the architecture, not a pricing tier. The built-in product groups and any added later use the same mechanism, and all of it is Apache-2.0.

Where to go next

To run a node, start with the Quick Start. To use the library on its own, read What the core does. To see how the software maps to the law, start with the ESPR overview.