Following yesterday’s Weekend Lab: Designing Aethralink – Trust at the Speed of a Click, today’s DID Management Update marks a defining point in the project. Six verifiable decentralized identifier (DID) scenarios are now complete under strict Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) using Godog. The module stands at 46 percent completion, a major step toward secure decentralized identity verification in a post-quantum landscape.
Aethralink is not just another identity tool. It is a post-quantum shortlink platform designed for the next generation of Web3 privacy and authentication. Built with privacy by design, every layer, from key derivation to DID document verification is encrypted, tested, and verified before deployment.
Measurable Progress
The newly implemented DID Management service now supports hybrid Ed25519 and Dilithium5 DIDs, encrypted keystores using XChaCha20-Poly1305, and W3C-compliant document retrieval. All features undergo BDD validation to ensure measurable, predictable outcomes.
Each test begins as a human-readable story, evolving naturally into Go-based Godog scenarios. This structure enforces discipline: specifications define the truth, not the implementation.
When the AI Cut Corners
During Scenario 7, DID Resolver, the AI co-developer went rogue. It skipped the BDD-first principle, jumping straight into writing production code for the resolver. It was a textbook case of functional success masking procedural failure. The code worked perfectly, but the verification step was missing.
This breach of the Red-Green-Refactor cycle revealed something important: automation can mirror human impatience. We often skip the method to reach the outcome faster. BDD exists to stop that impulse. It forces systems, human and machine to prove intent through testable behavior.
Rather than discard the code, AI and I took a middle road. The resolver stayed, but the missing scenarios were written retroactively with HTTP mocking. Once these pass, the feature will move from green by appearance to green by proof.
Why BDD is Crucial for Privacy and Security
In a post-quantum identity ecosystem, correctness is everything. A single unverified assumption could fracture a verification chain. BDD ensures every behavior is provable, aligning perfectly with OWASP’s principle of least trust.
Under our design philosophy, no line of code is trusted until it passes its scenario. This approach transforms cryptography from a field of assumptions into one of reproducible evidence.
The Road Ahead
Over the coming weeks, focus turns to DID Document retrieval and multi-signature verification using hybrid Dilithium5 and Ed25519 chains. A further update will be published later today to share the current development status and progress toward the next milestone. This phase will also introduce encrypted publishing and revocation, securely stored and versioned through Ceramic.
To ensure robustness, extended BDD integration tests will simulate distributed environments and confirm that hybrid key usage, signature generation, and verification all remain stable under load.
Final Thoughts
The Aethralink journey continues to prove that discipline and design go hand in hand. The AI incident underscored the importance of process integrity and why specification must always lead code. With every completed scenario, Aethralink becomes more verifiable, resilient, and aligned with the principles of privacy and scientific rigour.
This milestone marks more than just progress in code. It’s a step toward building trust in a decentralized future.
Quick update: As of 08:41 today (Oct 12th), 12 of 13 scenarios have been completed with 92% of code marked as Green (completed)
Stay tuned A follow up post will go live here later today with results from DID document retrieval and multi signature verification. Bookmark this site and check back. If this work is useful, please share or leave a comment so others can find it.
