The Heirloom API allows issuers to issue Verifiable Credentials (VCs) to subjects with a set of claims conforming to specific schemas. The issuers and subjects are identified using Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs).
DIDs are the core identity primitive that Heirloom uses to identify parties interacting with VCs.
A VC is a packet of JSON data that contains claims that a given issuer wishes to make about a given subject. It is cryptographically signed using key material from the issuer’s DID.
Credential types are schemas that define what kind of data will be in a given credential. Heirloom has a number of predefined Credential Types to suit a multitude of use cases.
Collections are groupings of credentials of the same type. They are usually meant to represent a grouping of credentials that have a similar purpose/logical grouping/temporal grouping. For example with a University, they might have a collection represent all of the graduating degrees of a specific year.
You will have a DID provisioned for your Organization account automatically. This will be the primary DID that will appear as the issuer and perform signing of VCs in the API.
To issue credentials, you must first create the Collection that houses those credentials. For this version of the API, Collections can only be created within Heirloom Creator UI.