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Support CredentialQuery with empty elements_dict #48
Description
Currently, Credential Queries must include at least one requested element. There exist a number of niche cases where it may be useful to request no elements. Semantically, this is proving you are in possession of a document of a particular type.
- This can be used as a 'proof-of-human' signal, as it's a strong proof that this is a user.
- This can be used with TransactionData in a case where you want something signed, but you don't care about the identity of the user
- (SD-JWT-VC Specific) You can get back mandatory claims (minorly efficient)
These are pretty niche, but limiting it in-spec doesn't seem particularly desirable, but we can discuss.
Raised by Martijn, this is does then require showing sensible UI for this, which is challenging.
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jogu commentedon Sep 7, 2026
Discussed on today's WG call:
Should allow it in the spec. SD-JWT VC might have claims that are always disclosed, and in that context requesting no extra claims also makes sense. No obvious reason not to support it for mdocs.
Should it be mandatory for wallets to support though, given the UX difficulties? Could be let to ecosystem profiles etc.
OID4VP appears to require wallets to support this (though we're not sure the WG ever explicitly discussed it), and Joseph shared that there is conformance test that sends such a request and expects a credential with no selectively disclosable changes returned.
18013-5 namespaces in IssuerSigned structure is optional in response, suggesting it's legal to return an mdoc without any claims. An 18013-5 request must request at least one claim.
Further checking of the spec needed.
andrewhughes3000 commentedon Sep 19, 2026
I thought that for mdoc DeviceRequest, a list of specific data elements to be returned must be provided. And then the mdoc/holder can only respond with those requested data elements (I'm trying to say: "no wildcard requests").
If an empty CredentialQuery is expected to result in mandatory claims returned if SD-JWT-VC but no claims returned for mdoc, is this a problem? Am I understanding this correctly?
jogu commentedon Oct 5, 2026
Discussed on today's WG call:
Make this a credential format specific rule.
Question about whether this can be made optional for wallets to implement as it might not be easy to design UI for the case where there are no claims. It's believed to be mandatory for openid4vp. Making it optional may mean verifiers can't use it in practice.
awoie commentedon Oct 15, 2026
What is the rational of making this a credential format-specific rule?
andrewhughes3000 commentedon Oct 15, 2026
WG discussion: