Civic.Social

Decentralized Application

A civic technology initiative that says it is building open, federated infrastructure for community governance and civic participation: places for communities to gather and decide (Civic Spaces and Civic Hubs), a process layer, an activity feed and a citizen identity layer. Its four specifications are separate entries in this matrix (Civic Space, Civic Process, Civic Activity and Civic Identity). This entry covers the platform they describe: the specifications are drafts, and a reference hub backend is published under a source-available licence .

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Details

License Mixed: specifications and documents CC-BY-4.0; the reference hub backend is BSL 1.1 (production use needs a separate licence from the licensor; it converts to Apache-2.0 on 2030-04-19); the river and greenfield-starter repositories are AGPL-3.0
Dev Status 📝 Draft
Dev Status Detail Draft (the specifications are working drafts, v0.1 to v0.2; a reference hub backend is published and, per its README, Civic.Social runs sample hubs on it, but the project's phasing document calls the pilots 'not built yet')
Owner Civic.Social, described as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit initiative; the reference hub backend names the Mosaic Foundation as its licensor, and the documents do not say that the two are the same legal entity
Governing Body A single nonprofit steward for the initial deployment; the project says its governance mechanism is not yet built (a governance pilot is in final review)
Country Not stated by the project.
Stack Reference hub backend: Node 24, Postgres 17, PostgREST 14 (Supabase-compatible), TypeScript, hosted by Civic.Social on Vercel and Supabase; integrations with Polis for deliberation, an AI adapter, and email and monitoring services
Funding Not stated by the project.
Last Investigated Nov 12, 2026

Topology view

This tool in the centre and the things it is directly related to. Each line names the kind of relationship.

Topology view: Civic.SocialThis tool in the centre and the things it is directly related to. Each line names the kind of relationship.Civic.SocialDIDs (Conforms to)DIDsOpenID for Verifiable Credentials (OpenID4VC) (Conforms to)OpenID forVerifiable C…VCs (Conforms to)VCsCivic.Social Suite (Member of suite)Civic.SocialSuite

Open in Graph Explorer

Use Case Domains

Group Formation & Governance Identity & Trust Platform Evolution & Sovereignty

Affordances

Consent-based governance Cross-instance federation Portable attestations Data portability

Decentralized Application Attributes

Origins A civic technology initiative described as building open, federated infrastructure to connect and amplify the pro-democracy ecosystem; its canon documents set out three horizons (Now, Pilot, Vision)
Database Postgres 17 behind PostgREST in the reference hub backend
Query Language REST through PostgREST in the reference hub; activities use an ActivityStreams 2.0 profile
Data Formats ActivityStreams 2.0 profile with a planned, unpublished Civic JSON-LD context; SD-JWT VC credentials (required), W3C Verifiable Credentials Data Model 2.0, Bitstring Status List
Collaborative Live Editing Not stated by the project.
Rich Text Editing Not stated by the project.
Mobile Support Not stated by the project.
Web Support A hosted hub web front end is implied by the sample hubs; its pages could not be read, so what it offers is not verified
Native Apps Not stated by the project.
Terms Specifications CC-BY-4.0; reference hub backend BSL 1.1 (production use needs a separate licence); no price or hosted-service terms are stated
Funds Not stated by the project.
Based On W3C DID Core and Verifiable Credentials 2.0, SD-JWT VC, OpenID4VCI and OpenID4VP, SIOPv2, ActivityStreams 2.0; ActivityPub is in scope for evaluation and an AT Protocol bridge is an intended later target
Use Case Category Social Network and Collaboration: civic spaces, deliberation and participation, citizen identity
User Interface Type Not stated by the project (hub front end not readable).
Offline Capabilities Not stated by the project.
Collaboration Features Civic Spaces, a Civic Process plugin, an activity feed and discovery, a citizen dashboard and civic credentialing are specified or drafted; a Polis integration is used for deliberation
Data Portability Level A (archival export) is the floor: every space must export; Level B (continuity) is the pilot target; Level C (live state) is a v1.0 objective that needs a plugin-state export contract that does not exist yet; citizens must be able to migrate between account providers
Integration Ecosystem A plugin architecture for civic processes, hub-to-hub pull interoperation, and planned ActivityPub and AT Protocol bridges
Web2 Data Export Not stated by the project.
Prosocial Coherence Deliberation through a Polis integration, an AI moderation strategy document, and a trust registry for issuers; the governance mechanism for the initiative is not yet built
Economic Flows None described.
Governance & Decision Making A single nonprofit steward for the initial deployment; the project says the nonprofit intent is stated but the governance mechanism is not yet built; a governance pilot is in final review
Media / Publishing No
Knowledge Management No
Sensemaking Yes: deliberation through Polis
Project Management No
Communication Model Asynchronous: activity feeds and hub-to-hub pull; push delivery (inbox and outbox) is specified at conformance Level 2 and not yet implemented
Network Resilience Partial: federation is optional and hubs interoperate by pull; data export keeps spaces portable between engines at Level B (a pilot target)
Discovery Mechanism A discovery layer and an activity feed are specified; hubs are found through their sites
Max Participants Not stated by the project.
Data Sovereignty Hybrid: key custody is managed by default with self-custody available; the v0.1 design does not provide cross-context unlinkability

Relationships

How this tool connects to other tools and organizations, from relationships reviewed by the OpenHaven data steward. They describe how projects connect, not how good they are.

Conforms to
Member of suite
  • Civic.Social Suite