How OC Pledge works

Three signed artifacts, byte-identical across implementations:

Pledge envelope — the swearer's commitment. BIP-322-signed.
Outcome envelope — the resolution. Either deterministic (no signature) or signed by a designated resolver.
Abandonment envelope (optional) — the swearer's pre-resolution admission of break. Counts as broken in the public ledger.

The canonical pledge message

The bytes the swearer signs are deterministic and human-readable. The user must be able to read them in their wallet's signing prompt and understand what they're committing to.

oc-pledge/v1
swearer: bc1qexampleaddress…
proposition: I will publish my Q3 results by block 920000.
resolution:
  mechanism: stamp_published
  query: content_hash:sha256:7d…
resolves_at:
  block: 920000
expires_at: 2026-08-01T00:00:00Z
bond:
  attestation_id: 84ad…
  min_sats: 1000000
  min_days: 90
counterparty: null
dispute:
  mechanism: null
  params: null
remediation: breach_recorded
sworn_at: 2026-04-25T15:00:00Z
nonce: 7af3b2c149e87fa1c6d2eb5403f8a0d9

Canonical-serialization rules (see SPEC §3): UTF-8, LF only, no trailing whitespace, exact field order, decimal integers without leading zeros, ISO-8601 UTC Z timestamps, addresses in their canonical bech32 / legacy form. Byte-exact serialization is a conformance requirement.

pledge_id := sha256(canonical_message_bytes)   // hex-lowercase

The seven resolution mechanisms

Fixed at v0.1. No extensions without working integrator code demonstrating the need.

Mechanism	Resolution outcome is computed from…	Determines outcome offline?
`chain_state`	Bitcoin RPC against a small canonical DSL	yes
`counterparty_signs`	a BIP-322 signature from the named counterparty	no — needs resolver
`nostr_event_exists`	a Nostr query against ≥ 2 relays from the default set	yes
`stamp_published`	a lookup of a specific OC Stamp envelope by hash or id	yes
`http_get_hash`	SHA-256 of the response body of a specified URL	yes
`dns_record`	a DoH query for a specified record from a resolver set	yes
`vote_resolves`	the tally of a named OC Vote poll above a threshold	no — needs resolver

Every mechanism produces a deterministic boolean outcome given fixed public state. The SDK refuses any combination that can't.

There is no self_proof mechanism. This is a deliberate refusal — see Why and the REGISTRY for the long argument.

Full grammar for each: Resolution grammar.

The outcome envelope

Paired with the pledge, published as a Nostr kind-30078 replaceable event under d-tag oc-pledge-outcome:<pledge_id>.

oc-pledge-outcome/v1
pledge_id: <sha256 of pledge canonical message>
outcome: kept | broken | expired_unresolved | disputed
resolved_at: <ISO-8601 UTC>
resolved_by: <address | 'deterministic'>
evidence:
  mechanism: <same as pledge>
  result: <canonical query output>
  witness: <chain_height + chain_hash | nostr_event_id | http_response_hash | dns_response | counterparty_sig | vote_poll_id>
dispute_window_ends_at: <ISO-8601 UTC>
sig: <base64 BIP-322 from resolved_by | empty if deterministic>

For deterministic mechanisms — chain_state, nostr_event_exists, stamp_published, http_get_hash, dns_record — every verifier independently produces the byte-identical outcome envelope. No resolver is required and sig is empty. This is the property that makes Pledge gas-free: anyone can resolve, no one needs permission.

For counterparty_signs and vote_resolves, the outcome requires a BIP-322 signature from the named resolver. Absence of that signature within expires_at → expired_unresolved.

A disputed outcome is produced when a contradictory outcome envelope is published within the dispute window. Disputed pledges stay disputed until the named dispute mechanism resolves them, or time out to expired_unresolved.

The abandonment envelope

A swearer who wants to exit gracefully publishes:

oc-pledge-abandonment/v1
pledge_id: <sha256>
abandoned_at: <ISO-8601 UTC>
reason: <single-line, max 280 chars>
sig: <base64 BIP-322 from swearer>

Abandonment counts as broken in the public ledger. No "honorable exit" classification. The reason field is informational; the ledger is binary. This is a pressure-tested decision — any "honorable abandonment" status creates a race-to-abandon attack where swearers dodge foreseeable failures by admitting them slightly earlier.

How the outcome is found

Verifiers query Nostr by d-tag pattern:

oc-pledge:<pledge_id> — the pledge
oc-pledge-outcome:<pledge_id> — the outcome
oc-pledge-abandonment:<pledge_id> — the abandonment

Default relay set is reused from OC Lock; integrators can override. A client-side verifier MUST consult ≥ 2 relays before declaring a missing outcome a true absence.