> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://codex.desci.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://codex.desci.com/protocol-operation/dpid-resolvers.md).

# dPID resolver

HTTP resolver for persistent identifiers

While the protocol already has globally unique, versionable, persistent identifiers for publications, they are quite verbose, being based on content hashing. The dPID system allows minting human-readable identifiers, which is the main way to reference publications on Codex.

The dPID resolver acts as a HTTP bridge to content resolvable in the protocol, allowing programmatic exploration and resolution of publication data over an user-friendly API.

[dpid.org](https://dpid.org) is the canonical resolver which is maintained by DeSci Labs, but you can easily host your own. Visit the [browse page](https://dpid.org/browse) to explore content published on Codex and see how a dPID can be used to granularly reference any artifact in a publication.

## Implementation

The dPID registry is implemented in a decentralised fashion as a smart contract, which permanently maps a human-readable PID to a Codex reference. This contract is open for anyone to interact with, the protocol data is open, and the [dPID resolver](https://github.com/desci-labs/dpid-resolver) is free, open source software.