SWHID Working Group

SWHIDs (from “SoftWare Hash IDentifiers”) are persistent, intrinsic identifiers for software source code artifacts such as source code files, source trees, commits, and other objects typically found in version control systems.

The SWHID was officially published as the ISO/IEC international standard 18670 on April 23, 2025. Official ISO Listing Free Public Specification

The SWHID Working Group oversees development of the SWHID materials in the SWHID GitHub repositories, including the following:

  • The SWHID specification itself
  • A list of resources related to SWHID, like examples of use, implementations, and projects adopting it.

Working version of the specification document

A link is provided to the working version of the SWHID specification, which is updated automatically whenever a change is made to the SWHID Specification repository.

Participation and governance

Participation in the elaboration of the SWHID standard is open to all. Design and planning are primarily done via the team mailing list (see how to join) and meetings: see the dedicated SWHID Specification repository for more information.

The SWHID specification is maintained by the SWHID core team.

The working group follows the principles stated in the governance document maintained in the governance repository.

These principles follow the model proposed by the Community Specification, that has been developed via the Joint Development Foundation (now part of the Linux Foundation), with inspiration from the Open Web Foundation agreements and the Alliance for Open Media Patent License 1.0.

Onboarding material

A dedicated webinar has been held to help onboarding participants to this working group. The material is available online, and newcomers are encouraged to start here :