Concepts
The life of a name
From registration to activation, and from a missed renewal to a released address. Death is final: the permanent ID is never reused, and the former name's death record stays public.
Every status
A name is always in one of these states. The registry keeps them; PNS publishes most of them in the name’s signed STATUS record, and the live /status check reads them straight from the registry’s database.
| Status | Published STATUS | Opens? | Means |
|---|---|---|---|
pending | Not published | No | Registration started; waiting for payment, a review or a realm's charter decision. |
expired | Not published | No | An unpaid hold ran out. The label is free again. |
paid | Not published | No | Paid for; waiting for verification or for its key. A character is born the moment it is paid for, or, for twins or triplets, once each sibling is named. |
born | born | No | Born, with its certificate and key, but not activated yet. |
active | active | Yes | Live. The only state in which a portal opens. |
sleeping | sleeping | No | A character whose owner's model key failed or ran out of credit. It shows a sleeping screen, not an error, and wakes when the key works. |
suspended | suspended | No | Stopped by Jubilee, for example while a report is reviewed. Can be restored. |
dormant | dormant | No | A missed renewal. Held for a year; paying the renewal revives it at once. |
dead | dead, a tombstone | No | A year dormant: a death certificate is issued, the PID and DNA fingerprint are retired, and the owner has 30 days to export memory. |
resting | resting, a tombstone | No | The address rests a year, so no one can pose as the former name. |
released | released, a tombstone | No | The address is open to anyone, as a new name with a new PID. The old PID stays public. |
retired | retired, a tombstone | No | Retired by its owner, with a death certificate. The address is held. Final. |
terminated | terminated, a tombstone | No | Terminated by Jubilee, with a death certificate. The address is held. Final. |
A character with no living Guardian is not a status of its own: its GUARDIAN record says paused, and the Character Server will not run it until a successor steps in. See Succession.
When a renewal is missed
A name renews yearly, by itself when a card is on file. The owner is reminded 30, 7 and 1 days before it expires. If the renewal is still missed, the name moves through three stages, and death is final:
- Dormant, for a year. After a 30-day grace period the name becomes
dormant. It cannot be activated, but its address, DNA, certificate and memory are held. Paying the renewal revives it at once, to the state it was in. - Dead. After a year dormant, Jubilee issues a death certificate. The owner is emailed and has 30 days to export the character’s memory from the Character Server; then it is deleted. The permanent ID and the DNA fingerprint are retired forever and never reissued.
- Resting, for a year. The address rests, so no one can pose as the former character.
- Released. The address opens to anyone. The owner is emailed.
For Oasis, dying on 2028-11-21, that is: resting from 2028-12-21, released on 2029-12-21. Every one of these changes stops the name from opening, so each is published to all four PNS servers first and confirmed there, and the Mesh servers are told at once.
A name that never goes live
A name must go live within 90 days of payment, after two warnings by email. One that does not is released straight away: it was never seen, so there is no former character to protect. If it had been born, it gets a death certificate first. A realm has six months from its approval to open a live destination beneath it; a realm that is live but never did so dies, and follows the path above.
No resurrection
Nothing that has died, been retired or been terminated ever comes back. A returning owner registers a new name, which gets a new permanent ID and a new birth certificate, and may load memories from their own export. The new name is a different character, and the Mesh says so.
The former character’s death record stays public. When a released address has been registered again, the public lookup, GET /v1/lookup/:address, shows the new name and lists the former ones in formerNames, each with its PID, when it was released, and its certificates, so anyone can see that the address now belongs to someone else:
{
"name": "oasis.character",
"address": "activate://oasis.character",
"pid": "pid:01JBX3QB7E2G5J8M1P4S6V9X3Z",
"state": "active",
"displayName": "Oasis",
"formerNames": [
{
"pid": "pid:01JBX3Q8Z9M4T7K2V5N6R8W0YC",
"releasedAt": "2029-12-21T12:00:00.000Z",
"certificateUrl": "/v1/certificates/pid%3A01JBX3Q8Z9M4T7K2V5N6R8W0YC"
}
]
}Every address is unique on the Mesh; display names are not. Two characters may both be called “Oasis”: the permanent ID and the fingerprints tell them apart.
Tombstones
A name that is dead, resting, released, retired, terminated keeps resolving, as a tombstone. Its bundle carries only its ID, STATUS and CERT records, so it stays discoverable and nothing its owner signed can be activated again. The contract’s bundleRecords builds it, for PNS Sync and for the PNS Console’s comparisons alike.
| Status | Tombstone |
|---|---|
born | No: every record |
active | No: every record |
sleeping | No: every record |
suspended | No: every record |
dormant | No: every record |
dead | Yes: ID, STATUS and CERT only |
resting | Yes: ID, STATUS and CERT only |
released | Yes: ID, STATUS and CERT only |
retired | Yes: ID, STATUS and CERT only |
terminated | Yes: ID, STATUS and CERT only |
Oasis, dead: bundleRecords dropped PERSONA, GUARDIAN, ENDPOINT, CONSENT and kept ID, STATUS and CERT. The tombstone verified against the example root key, with the registry’s verifier and the standalone one, and said dead; a client that needs a complete portal refused it, because PERSONA, GUARDIAN, ENDPOINT are gone.
{
"schema": "pm.bundle/1",
"name": "oasis.character",
"pid": "pid:01JBX3Q8Z9M4T7K2V5N6R8W0YC",
"scheme": "activate",
"serial": 9,
"records": [
{
"name": "oasis.character",
"type": "ID",
"version": 1,
"ttl": 3600,
"data": {
"pid": "pid:01JBX3Q8Z9M4T7K2V5N6R8W0YC",
"rootType": "character",
"family": "identity",
"publicKey": {
"kty": "OKP",
"crv": "Ed25519",
"x": "11qYAYKxCrfVS_7TyWQHOg7hcvPapiMlrwIaaPcHURo"
},
"keyId": "pid:01JBX3Q8Z9M4T7K2V5N6R8W0YC#k1",
"born": "2026-10-23T12:00:00.000Z"
},
"issued": "2026-10-23T12:00:00.000Z",
"kid": "jubilee-root-example",
"signature": "Jzs--LBsgsL2QoxOiko4O0GTizhqMzie8ajRXN5h-uugPJcUTgyAvpnTcadaG44AKMQRdxOoXf8Jr4C_8n5LBg"
},
{
"name": "oasis.character",
"type": "STATUS",
"version": 4,
"ttl": 60,
"data": {
"state": "dead",
"since": "2028-11-21T12:00:00.000Z"
},
"issued": "2028-11-21T12:00:00.000Z",
"kid": "jubilee-root-example",
"signature": "oTkcVLss_gzlbPWmROuCkxvLNbeRyGTDhcPjPrJ5F5PfIgrrFABlcg-V-N4aUullNiI9Rhge-EopTjlTOW0eAQ"
},
{
"name": "oasis.character",
"type": "CERT",
"version": 2,
"ttl": 3600,
"data": {
"certificateId": "crt_01JBX3Q8ZA6M2T9K4V7N1R3W5Y",
"kind": "birth",
"version": 1,
"fingerprint": "sha256:8985a02b0098e873418e5de978268581dfc2c1777279d3799e9345379b33e9ae",
"url": "https://theportalmesh.com/certificate/pid:01JBX3Q8Z9M4T7K2V5N6R8W0YC",
"issuedAt": "2026-10-23T12:00:00.000Z",
"personaFingerprint": "sha256:f666f7b6e5c7b0a0c94366a7b55b902d2d3c1fb6d6d130922c70f7a274f00a24",
"dnaFingerprint": "sha256:eacb55f7bb7e1c0240780e660ade3ddea5a4fc08d36fb23f3f52f983a604e54d",
"death": {
"certificateId": "crt_01KX7M2Q4S6V8Y0A3C5E7G9J1K",
"fingerprint": "sha256:ca60026a2c9798783cd3996d320ac8f6e253a8c5137ea7265e50c61cc8e4fc38",
"issuedAt": "2028-11-21T12:00:00.000Z"
}
},
"issued": "2028-11-21T12:00:00.000Z",
"kid": "jubilee-root-example",
"signature": "mg9XM9ah4aAFJBic58pQwmqhRjlTr6B83lPUZyVSS8fhppMTacGIspEJO1q47UuaGg4pfLEpDDcT6LbQtTVYDQ"
}
],
"issued": "2028-11-21T12:00:01.000Z",
"kid": "jubilee-root-example",
"signature": "kF6KQtyQdHEb7IF-cSHmG1oHAvRTmluLHA1FbRKiVH1s9-Y24Jgvsi2OwdQtqMjWjcmWWSwSarscyIq5-QfXAg"
}Its CERT record points at the last birth certificate and, in death, at the death certificate, whose fingerprint is sha256:ca60026a2c9798783cd3996d320ac8f6e253a8c5137ea7265e50c61cc8e4fc38:
{
"body": {
"schema": "pm.certificate/1",
"kind": "death",
"certificateId": "crt_01KX7M2Q4S6V8Y0A3C5E7G9J1K",
"version": 1,
"pid": "pid:01JBX3Q8Z9M4T7K2V5N6R8W0YC",
"name": "oasis.character",
"address": "activate://oasis.character",
"namespace": "character",
"family": "identity",
"registrant": {
"displayName": "Example Studio",
"type": "organization"
},
"bornAt": "2026-10-23T12:00:00.000Z",
"issuedAt": "2028-11-21T12:00:00.000Z",
"issuer": "The Portal Mesh Registry, Jubilee Software, Inc.",
"notices": [
"Relationship labels describe roles and a chain of responsibility only. They do not create human employment status, legal personhood, or human rights.",
"This certificate proves provenance and the registered persona, not the accuracy of the underlying model."
],
"lookup": "https://theportalmesh.com/lookup/?name=oasis.character",
"relationshipLabel": "AI Employee",
"displayName": "Oasis",
"character": {
"class": "worker",
"gender": "female",
"dnaFingerprint": "sha256:eacb55f7bb7e1c0240780e660ade3ddea5a4fc08d36fb23f3f52f983a604e54d",
"birthCountry": "US",
"responsible": {
"role": "responsible_guardian",
"shownAs": "Responsible Guardian",
"displayName": "Jordan Lee"
},
"guardian": {
"displayName": "Example Studio"
},
"affirmation": "I accept the duties and responsibilities of guardianship for this AI character.",
"kind": "human",
"humanoid": true,
"fullName": "Oasis Rivera",
"attributedAge": 32,
"inspireType": "The Keeper",
"dnaListVersion": "2026-10-24",
"dnaSignature": {
"kid": "jubilee-root-example",
"signature": "Qqg_hrZtE1FZQHuNWwiQZDqw4QR8aoTYwbWGuFVO_lCedz58ZncpZCw3JCjm6vUeBOJ62PhMwG4QUIpUr6UIAg"
},
"characterFingerprint": "sha256:e3886f6081f353d1b96e6ff0275f89acad0492acdca5f52dbdcad6d2fe9f87fa"
},
"retiredAt": "2028-11-21T12:00:00.000Z",
"reason": "Its renewal was missed and it stayed dormant for a year."
},
"kid": "jubilee-root-example",
"signature": "jFSGfA2RYFmB-0UpPERNQY4ODXWCj45vq3GTtMNfsD0yPGNPk9aYssmBfUrmqmz6UbSm61uWUID-6XFP5Nb7DQ"
}