IPIP 0499: CID Profiles

src/ipips/ipip-0499.md

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+---
+# IPIP number should  match its pull request number. After you open a PR,
+# please update title and update the filename to `ipip0000`.
+title: "IPIP-0499: CID Profiles"
+date: 2025-04-03
+ipip: proposal
+editors:
+  - name: Michelle Lee
+    github: mishmosh
+    affiliation:
+      name: IPFS Foundation
+relatedIssues:
+  - https://discuss.ipfs.tech/t/should-we-profile-cids/18507
+order: 0499
+tags: ['ipips']
+---
+
+## Summary
+
+<!--One paragraph explanation of the IPIP.-->
+This proposal introduces profiles for IPFS CIDs. Profiles explicitly define CID version, hash algorithm, chunk size, DAG width, layout, and other parameters.
+
+## Motivation
+
+Currently, CIDs can be generated with a variety of settings and optimizations for chunking, DAG width, and more. This means the same file can yield multiple, different CIDs depending on which tools and settings are used, and it is not possible to reliably reproduce or verify the CID. Profiles offer With profiles, following the same profile will produce identical CIDs for identical content, whic makes verification regardless of implementation.
+
+## Detailed design
+
+We introduce a profile naming system,
+
+Each profile must specify the following characteristics:
+
+1. CID version (currently only CIDv0 or CIDv1)
+1. Hash algorithm
+1. UnixFS Chunk algorithm (e.g. size-based or content-based)
+1. UnixFS directory DAG layout (e.g. balanced, trickle)
+1. UnixFS file DAG width (max number of links per `File` node)
+1. UnixFS directory DAG width (max number of links per basic `Directory` node)
+1. UnixFS HAMT directory DAG threshold (max `Directory` size before switching to `HAMTDirectory`)
+1. HAMT directory DAG width (max number of fanout links per internal HAMTDirectory node)
+1. Leaf Envelope (historically `dag-pb`, CIDv1 introduced `raw` leaves)
+1. Empty directories (informative suggestion)
+
+Additional profiles can be added at a future date. Profile names may be chosen from the names of any botanical tree with compound leaves.
+
+This would be specified as a table in (forthcoming UnixFS spec).
+
+## Design rationale
+
+The profile names are chosen to be easy to pronounce.
+
+Here is a summary table of current (2025-Q2) defaults, thanks to input & clarifications from @2color @achingbrain @lidel:
+
+|                                 | Helia default | Kubo `legacy-cid-v0` (default)    | Storacha default | Kubo `test-cid-v1` | Kubo `test-cid-v1-wide`   | DASL          |
+|---------------------------------|---------------|-----------------------------------|------------------|--------------------|---------------------------|---------------|
+| CID version                     | CIDv1         | CIDv0                             | CIDv1            | CIDv1              | CIDv1                     | CIDv1         |
+| Hash Algo                       | sha-256       | sha-256                           | sha-256          | sha-256            | sha-256                   | sha-256       |
+| Chunk size                      | 1MiB          | 256KiB                            | 1MiB             | 1MiB               | 1MiB                      | not specified |
+| Max links `File` node           | 1024          | 174                               | 1024             | 174                | **1024**                  | not specified |
+| Max links `Directory` node      | ?             | 0                                 | ?                | 0                  | 0                         | ?             |
+| Max fanout `HAMTDirectory` node | 256 blocks    | 256 blocks                        | 256 blocks       | 256 blocks         | **1024**                  | not specified |
+| `HAMTDirectory` threshold       | 256KiB (est)  | 256KiB (est:links[name+cid])      | 1000 **links**   | 256KiB             | **1MiB**                  | not specified |
+| DAG layout                      | balanced      | balanced                          | balanced         | balanced           | balanced                  | not specified |
+| Leaves                          | raw           | raw                               | raw              | raw                | raw                       | not specified |
+| Empty directories               | allowed       | allowed                           | disallowed       | allowed            | allowed                   | not specified |
+
+See related discussion at https://discuss.ipfs.tech/t/should-we-profile-cids/18507/
+
+### User benefit
+
+Reliable, deterministic CIDs allow independent verification of content across tools and ipmlementations.
+
+### Compatibility
+
+Implementations will need to (1) make CID generation settings configurable and (2) support user setting of profiles.
+
+Kubo 0.35 will have [`Import.*` configuration](https://github.com/ipfs/kubo/blob/master/docs/config.md#import) option to control DAG width.
+
+### Security
+
+TODO
+
+### Alternatives
+
+Another approach could be to name profiles based on the key UnixFS/CID parameters, e.g. v1-sha256-balanced-1mib-1024w-raw. This is longer and more convoluted.
+
+
+#### Empty directories
+
+Decision if empty directories should be included is left out of scope.
+
+Tools can apply arbitrary filtering before passing filesystem entries
+to be converted into a DAG, thus for 1:1 CID reproducibility one should
+run without any prefilters, or ensure the same prefilters are applied.
+
+## Test fixtures
+
+TODO
+
+List relevant CIDs. Describe how implementations can use them to determine
+specification compliance. This section can be skipped if IPIP does not deal
+with the way IPFS handles content-addressed data, or the modified specification
+file already includes this information.
+
+### Copyright
+
+Copyright and related rights waived via [CC0](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/).