Architecture

Two-tier storage, three-hop resolution, four kinds of identity.

Two-tier storage

Tier What lives there Why
Sigil L1 content-hash anchors, publisher bonds, identity records immutability + global ordering
Weave DHT full entry payloads, indexed by content hash low-latency reads, cheap replication

Anchors are tiny — 32 bytes plus a few metadata fields. Most of an entry's weight (manifests, schemas, embedded artifacts) lives in the DHT, where it can be replicated dozens of times without bloating the chain.

Three-hop resolution

local shard  →  regional cluster  →  global anchor
   ~12 ms          ~48 ms                ~320 ms

Most resolutions never leave the local shard. Only roots, revocations, and global identity lookups ever hit the chain.

Four identity record kinds

  • HMR — Human Master Record. Always a real person.
  • MHR — Machine Holding Record. FROST t-of-n custodian.
  • ENR — Entity Namespace Record. Bound to one HMR/MHR.
  • (Entry) — Not an identity itself; signed by a key derived from one of the above.