Core Concepts

Odal Node’s design rests on three ideas. Each section below links to a fuller page.

Proof-bound: the data stays yours

The operator’s product data never reaches Odal. The manufacturer validates a passport on their own node and signs it with their own key, and the node stores it there. What the node serves is the signed passport: the product data the operator chose to publish, with every field bound to a proof and filtered by the reader’s access rights.

This is how the software works, so it does not depend on trusting us. Verifying a passport needs only the signed passport and the manufacturer’s public identity. Odal does not need to be online, or to exist.

What Odal Node can and cannot see covers the data boundary in full.

Open core: regulation in one part, operation in the other

Odal Node has two parts under two licences. The core is the regulatory library, open source under Apache-2.0: the rules a compliant passport must satisfy. The engine is the service that runs those rules in production, source-available under BSL-1.1 with a grant that allows self-hosting.

One rule decides where a change belongs. If it changes because an EU regulation changed, it goes in the core. If it changes because of how the system is deployed or operated, it goes in the engine. The engine depends on the core; the core does not know the engine exists.

Licensing covers what each licence allows.

One extension point for new regulation

Regulation arrives one product group at a time, and it keeps changing. The core therefore has a single extension point: each product group’s compliance logic plugs in there, and new product groups and revised rules are added without changing anything around them. See Product groups & plugins.

Not a paywall

The extension point is part of the architecture, not a pricing tier. The built-in product groups and any added later use the same mechanism, and all of it is open. New regulatory coverage is never a paid add-on.

Where to go next

To run a node, start with the Quick Start. To see what Odal Node can and cannot see, read What Odal Node can and cannot see. To see how the software maps to the law, start with the ESPR Overview.