dCBOR

Semantic & Data Protocol

Application profile for CBOR (Concise Binary Object Representation, RFC 8949) defining narrowing rules to achieve interoperable deterministic encoding across implementations. Where RFC 8949 leaves several encoding choices to the implementer (number canonicalization, NaN handling, floating-point representation, map key ordering), dCBOR specifies a single canonical form so that semantically equivalent data items always encode to identical byte streams. Underlying format for Gordian Envelope and several other Blockchain Commons specifications. Available as production-ready libraries in Rust, Swift, and TypeScript with CLI tooling

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License BSD-2-Clause Plus Patent License — bc-dcbor-rust, BCSwiftDCBOR, BCTypescriptDCBOR, dcbor-cli
Dev Status 🟢 Active
Dev Status Detail Production-ready libraries; IETF Internet-Draft draft-mcnally-deterministic-cbor-17, intended status Standards Track
Owner Blockchain Commons LLC (not-for-profit benefit corporation founded by Christopher Allen, April 25, 2019; Berkeley, California). Specification authors: Wolf McNally and Christopher Allen (Blockchain Commons), Carsten Bormann (Universität Bremen TZI), Laurence Lundblade (Security Theory LLC)
Country USA (Blockchain Commons); international authorship (Bormann: Germany; Lundblade: USA)
Start Year 2023
Stack Rust (bc-dcbor-rust), Swift (BCSwiftDCBOR), TypeScript (BCTypescriptDCBOR), command-line tool (dcbor-cli)
Funding Blockchain Commons donations and patron sponsorships
Last Investigated Jul 1, 2026

Use Case Domains

Co-Creation & Knowledge

Semantic & Data Protocol Attributes

Origins Blockchain Commons (March 2023 first draft); developed in collaboration with IETF CBOR Working Group
Database N/A — serialization profile; not a storage system
Query Language N/A — encoding specification; not a query mechanism
Data Formats CBOR (RFC 8949) with narrowing constraints: shortest integer/float representation, lexicographic map key ordering, canonical NaN, no -0 floating point ambiguity, etc.
Collaborative Live Editing N/A — encoding specification
Rich Text Editing N/A — binary serialization profile
Mobile Support Yes (via Swift and Rust libraries)
Web Support Yes (via TypeScript)
Native Apps Yes (consumed by all Blockchain Commons reference apps via Gordian Envelope)
Terms Open standard, BSD-2-Clause Plus Patent License
Funds Unknown — funded under Blockchain Commons general operating budget; specific dCBOR allocation not separately published
Based On RFC 8949 (CBOR); CBOR Common Deterministic Encoding (CDE); RFC 7942 (Implementation Status)
Semantic Web Compatibility Generic binary data format; can carry RDF / JSON-LD payloads but is not itself semantic
Protocol Maturity / Standardization IETF Internet-Draft draft-mcnally-deterministic-cbor-17 (Feb 2026), intended status Standards Track; production-ready libraries with multiple third-party implementations
Vocabulary / Ontology Type Encoding profile (no vocabulary); narrowing rules over a general-purpose binary serialization format
Usage Pattern Foundation for Gordian Envelope, UR (Uniform Resources), XID, Gordian Clubs, and other Blockchain Commons specifications; used wherever byte-level determinism matters (signing, hashing, content addressing)