Identity and Contacts
After creating a DID (see Create a DID), Essentials gives you a full identity management interface. You can edit your profile, manage verifiable credentials, publish your identity on-chain, and maintain a DID-based contacts list.
Identity Home
The Identity section has three tabs:
| Tab | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Home | Overview of your identity status, avatar, name, and quick actions |
| Profile | Your editable public information fields |
| Credentials | All verifiable claims attached to your DID |
Editing Your Profile
From the Profile tab, tap any field to add or edit your public information. Fields are grouped by category:
| Category | Fields |
|---|---|
| Personal | Name, nickname, bio, gender, country, birth date |
| Professional | Occupation, education, interests |
| Contact | Phone, email, website |
| Social | Twitter, Telegram, WeChat, and others |
Each field you fill in becomes part of your DID document. You choose what to include. Fields left empty are not published.
Managing Credentials
The Credentials tab shows all verifiable credentials attached to your DID. These are cryptographically signed claims issued by apps or services, for example:
- KYC verification from a service
- App-specific permissions or memberships
- Self-issued claims (your own profile fields)
Tap any credential to see its full details, including who issued it, when, and the specific claims it contains.
Publishing Your DID
After editing your profile or receiving new credentials, you can publish your updated DID document to the Elastos Identity Chain. This makes your public profile information discoverable by other users and dApps.
You can choose the publishing method in Settings > Privacy. Assist is the default and does not require you to hold EID tokens.
Backing Up Your Identity
Identity backup ensures your DID credentials are preserved. The backup flow verifies that you have saved your recovery phrase. Access it from the Identity Home tab or the backup widget on the home screen.
With your 12-word recovery phrase safely stored, you can restore your identity and all on-chain credentials on any device. Locally stored credentials that were not published on-chain require separate backup.
Contacts
Essentials includes a DID-based contacts list for connecting with other Elastos users.
Add a contact by entering their DID string (did:elastos:...), pasting it, or scanning their QR code. Once added, Essentials fetches the contact's published DID profile -- name, avatar, bio, social accounts, website, and ELA address -- all verified against their on-chain DID document.
You can favorite contacts (pinned to the top), customize them with a local display name, personal note, or photo that only you see, and sort the list alphabetically.
Display your identity as a QR code that others can scan to add you instantly. You can also share any contact's QR code the same way.
Credential Requests from dApps
When a dApp requests your credentials (for example, your name or email for DID-based sign-in), Essentials shows a prompt with exactly what is being requested. You see each requested field and can approve or deny the request.
This is how DID-based login works from the user side. The dApp never accesses your credentials without your explicit consent. For the developer perspective on implementing this flow, see DID Login.