Protocol-Specific Profiles for JSContact
draft-ietf-calext-jscontact-profiles-11
| Document | Type | Active Internet-Draft (calext WG) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Authors | Robert Stepanek , Mario Loffredo | ||
| Last updated | 2025-12-18 | ||
| Replaces | draft-stepanek-jscontact-profiles | ||
| RFC stream | Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) | ||
| Intended RFC status | Proposed Standard | ||
| Formats | |||
| Reviews |
ARTART IETF Last Call review
(of
-09)
by Paul Kyzivat
Ready w/issues
SECDIR IETF Last Call Review due 2025-11-25
Incomplete
|
||
| Additional resources | Mailing list discussion | ||
| Stream | WG state | Submitted to IESG for Publication | |
| Associated WG milestone |
|
||
| Document shepherd | Daniel Migault | ||
| Shepherd write-up | Show Last changed 2025-07-30 | ||
| IESG | IESG state | Waiting for AD Go-Ahead | |
| Action Holder |
Orie Steele
56
|
||
| Consensus boilerplate | Yes | ||
| Telechat date | (None) | ||
| Responsible AD | Orie Steele | ||
| Send notices to | mglt.ietf@gmail.com | ||
| IANA | IANA review state | Version Changed - Review Needed |
draft-ietf-calext-jscontact-profiles-11
calext R. Stepanek
Internet-Draft Fastmail
Intended status: Standards Track M. Loffredo
Expires: 21 June 2026 IIT-CNR
18 December 2025
Protocol-Specific Profiles for JSContact
draft-ietf-calext-jscontact-profiles-11
Abstract
This document defines JSContact profiles, an IANA registry for named
subsets of JSContact elements. It aims to facilitate using JSContact
in context of contact data exchange protocols or other use cases, in
which supporting all of JSContact semantics might be inappropriate.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on 21 June 2026.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2025 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/
license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document.
Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components
extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as
described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are
provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.
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Table of Contents
1. Notational Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
3. JSContact Profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.1. Profile Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.2. Profile Version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.3. Profile Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.4. Supported Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4. Example Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.1. Creation of the JSContact Profile Registry . . . . . . . 10
5.2. Initial Contents of the JSContact Profile Registry . . . 11
6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
7. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
7.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
7.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Appendix A. Supported Properties Example . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1. Notational Conventions
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
"OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP
14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
capitals, as shown here.
The ABNF definitions in this document use the notations of [RFC5234].
ABNF rules not defined in this document are defined in [RFC5234]
(such as the ABNF for DIGIT).
2. Introduction
The JSContact [RFC9553] contact card data model and format is
designed for use in address book applications and directory services.
Intended as an alternative to the prevalent vCard [RFC6350] data
format, it covers vCard core semantics and extensions, and provides a
rich model for personal names, postal addresses and localization.
All JSContact elements are relevant for some contact card use case
and, similar to vCard, implementations are expected to support these
elements when exchanging contact card information using protocols
such as CardDAV [RFC6352] and JMAP for Contacts [RFC9610].
In contrast, other protocols and internet standards might require
exchanging _some_ contact card information, but not all of what
JSContact provides. Section 1.7.4 of [RFC9553] outlines how
JSContact implementations may ignore unknown JSContact elements, but
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this only applies to future extensions of [RFC9553]; they are still
expected to implement all elements of the core specification. Also,
the extensibility of JSContact and the requirement to preserve
arbitrary contact elements might not be adequate for some protocols.
To make use of JSContact under these circumstances, this document
defines a new IANA registry for JSContact that allows for registering
named subsets of JSContact elements. These subsets are referred to
as "JSContact profiles" and are meant to bring the following
benefits:
* Protocol designers might be encouraged to use JSContact, rather
than coming up with their own contacts format. This facilitates
cross-protocol data exchange and migration.
* Different protocols use the same IANA registry to express which
JSContact elements they support. This facilitates understanding
their commonalities and reusing existing profiles.
* A central registry provides implementors of JSContact libraries
with a consistent format documenting which profile supports what
elements, rather than having to look up that information from
possibly distinctly organized internet drafts.
This document is organized as follows: Section 3 defines JSContact
profiles, Section 4 illustrates JSContact profiles by example,
Section 5 summarizes the relevant information for IANA to establish
the JSContact Profiles registry.
3. JSContact Profiles
A JSContact profile is a named and versioned set of JSContact
properties, value types and values. These JSContact elements MAY be
further restricted by the profile, but a profile can not loosen
restrictions. For example, a profile can define an originally
optional property to become mandatory, but it can not make a
mandatory property become optional.
The JSContact elements MUST be registered in the IANA JSContact
registry. A JSContact extension MAY define both a new profile and
new properties or other elements, as long as they are registered at
the same time. A JSContact profile MUST be registered at IANA (see
Section 5). Section 3.1 defines how to name a JSContact profile,
Section 3.2 defines how to version it, Section 3.3 defines how to
specify the properties supported by that profile.
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A JSContact object complies with a profile if all its properties are
in the set of properties defined by that profile and the property
values comply with the profile restrictions for that property. A
JSContact object can comply with multiple profiles, even with
profiles that weren't defined at the time when the JSContact data was
created. Accordingly, this document does not specify any means for
JSContact data to communicate which profiles it complies with, e.g.
it does not define a "profile" property for the Card object.
All properties and values of a JSContact object that complies with a
profile MUST also be valid (Section 1.7 of [RFC9553]). Handling
JSContact data that is valid but that does not comply with the
expected profile is protocol-specific. This document deliberately
does not define such non-compliant data as _invalid_. Profile
designers decide on their own strategies for handling non-compliant
data, one of which may be to reject it as invalid. JSContact data
that complies with a profile may still not be valid in the context of
that protocol; the protocol specification MAY define additional
restrictions that a profile cannot express.
3.1. Profile Name
A JSContact profile has a unique name. The name MUST only contain
ASCII lowercase alphabetic and numeric characters, optionally
separated by hyphens. It MUST start with an alphabetic character and
it MUST be of at least 1 character and at most 255 characters in
size. Formally, it MUST be a valid "profile-name" defined in
Figure 1.
profile-name = LALPHA *( ["-"] LALPHA / DIGIT )
; at most 255 octets in size
LALPHA = %x61-7A ; a-z
Figure 1: ABNF Rule for JSContact Profile Name
3.2. Profile Version
A JSContact profile has a current version, each profile is versioned
independently. The version MUST be a positive integer and it MUST
increase whenever the profile properties (Section 3.3) change. The
inital version value is 1.
If this versioning scheme is not adequate for protocol designers
making use of JSContact profiles, then an alternative approach is to
register a new JSContact profile for each new version.
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3.3. Profile Properties
A profile defines a list of property entries that together determine
the set of properties supported by that profile, as described in
Section 3.4. The list MUST NOT be empty.
Each property entry consists of the following elements:
Property Name: This is the name of the JSContact property that this
entry refers to. This MUST be a property name registered in the
"JSContact Properties" registry. A property name MAY occur
multiple times in the property entry list if the profile-specific
restrictions for that property can not be expressed with a single
entry, but such multiple entries MUST NOT result in conflicting
restrictions for the same property. This field MUST NOT be empty.
Property Context: This is a comma-separated list of JSContact object
types that support this property in this profile. Each of these
types MUST also be listed in the property contexts for this
property in the "JSContact Properties" registry, but a profile MAY
only support the property in a subset of these contexts. This
field MUST NOT be empty.
Restricted Attributes: This restricts the attributes of the
property. This specification only defines how to restrict the
attributes such that a property becomes mandatory in the listed
property contexts, despite the property originally being defined
to be optional in the same contexts. The verbatim value
"mandatory" (without quotes) indicates that it is mandatory in
this profile, the absence of any value indicates that this profile
does not restrict the property attributes of the original
definition.
Restricted Property Type: This restricts the property value type in
the listed property contexts, even though the property was
originally defined with a less restrictive type definition. If
set, the original value type MUST contain some type signature in
form "A|B" and the restricted value type MUST resemble the
original except that some of the original "A|B" forms now only
allow a subset of the original choices. Restricted property types
can not redefine the "defaultType" attribute [RFC9553]
(Section 1.3.3), the rules when to set the "@type" property
[RFC9553] (Section 1.3.4) of the original type definition still
apply.
For example, one might want to restrict the "date" property of the
Anniversary object to only allow partial dates as values. To do
so, the original value type "PartialDate|Timestamp" can be
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restricted to "PartialDate". Note that the original value type
need not be exactly in form "A|B". For example, the type
signature "Id[A|B|C]" could be restricted to any of "Id[A|B]",
"Id[A|C]", "Id[B|C]", "Id[A]", "Id[B]", "Id[C]", and the type
signature "(A|B)[]" to one of "A[]" or "B[]".
Restricted Enum Values: This restricts the enumerated values defined
for this property to a subset of those values. The values MUST be
listed in the "JSContact Enum Values" registry for this property
and context. Allowed values are separated by comma; the absence
of any value indicates that all enumerated values are allowed. A
profile MAY exclude the default enumerated value of a property, in
which case all instances of the object MUST have this property set
to one of the allowed values.
Restricted PatchObject: This restricts the PatchObject value of this
property such that each JSON Pointer key in the PatchObject MUST
consist of exactly one JSON Pointer reference token [RFC6901]
(Section 3). For example, with this restriction the
"localizations" property of the Card object can only patch
properties of the Card object by replacing their values entirely.
The verbatim value "yes" (without quotes) indicates that this
profile restricts PatchObject keys to a single token; the absence
of any value indicates that it does not restrict them. This MUST
NOT be set to "yes" if the property value type is not a
PatchObject.
All profiles MUST support "@type" and "version", and therefore
profiles MUST NOT include entries for these properties.
3.4. Supported Properties
The supported properties of a JSContact profile are determined by the
profile's property entries and the contents of the IANA "JSContact
Properties" registry, which is here referred to as "IANA-registered
properties" for short. The "version" property of the Card object and
the "@type" property of any object type are always supported.
A Card object complies with the profile if all its properties are
part of the supported properties and all property values are valid
according to the restrictions defined in the applicable property
entries. A PatchObject MUST NOT patch properties that are not
supported in that profile.
The following describes the steps to determine the supported
properties:
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1. Initialize the set with all properties of the Card object for
which a property entry contains "Card" in the Property Context of
the profile. If no such entry exists then initialize the set
with all IANA-registered properties of the Card object.
2. For every property in the set having either an object type as
value type, or a list or map or union of object types, add all
properties for which a property entry contains those object types
in the Property Context of the profile. If no such property
entry exists then add all IANA-registered properties for the
object types.
3. Repeat the previous step until all object types that are value
types of properties in the set have been considered.
Appendix A describes how to determine the supported properties of the
example profile in Section 4.
4. Example Profile
This section provides an example for a JSContact profile and
illustrates how a JSContact Card complies with that profile.
Appendix A describes how to determine the supported properties for
that profile. The example profile is defined the same as if it would
be registered in the IANA JSContact Profiles registry. See Section 5
for the exact meaning of each registry item. This profile is just
for illustration, it is not registered at IANA.
The following assignments would be registered at IANA if this were a
real profile:
Name:
jscontact-simple
Version:
1
Reference:
This document, Table 1
The following table defines the properties of that profile. This
profile does not specify any "Restricted Property Type" and the
according column is omitted.
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+=============+=============+==========+==============+===========+
|Property Name|Property |Restricted|Restricted |Restricted |
| |Context |Attributes|Enum Values |PatchObject|
+=============+=============+==========+==============+===========+
|addresses |Card | | | |
+-------------+-------------+----------+--------------+-----------+
|emails |Card | | | |
+-------------+-------------+----------+--------------+-----------+
|kind |Card | |individual,org| |
+-------------+-------------+----------+--------------+-----------+
|localizations|Card | | |yes |
+-------------+-------------+----------+--------------+-----------+
|name |Card | | | |
+-------------+-------------+----------+--------------+-----------+
|full |Address |mandatory | | |
+-------------+-------------+----------+--------------+-----------+
|components |Name | | | |
+-------------+-------------+----------+--------------+-----------+
|full |Name | | | |
+-------------+-------------+----------+--------------+-----------+
|kind |NameComponent| | | |
+-------------+-------------+----------+--------------+-----------+
|value |NameComponent| | | |
+-------------+-------------+----------+--------------+-----------+
Table 1: Properties of the "jscontact-simple" profile
This profile describes contact cards that can only contain:
* Contact cards for individuals and organizations, but no other
kinds such as groups or devices.
* Full postal address lines, but no address components or any other
property of the Address object type.
* Full names and name components, but no other properties of the
Name object type.
* Email addresses, where all properties of the EmailAddress object
are supported.
* Localizations, with the restriction that the PatchObject must only
patch properties of the Card object.
The following Card object complies with the example profile:
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{
"@type": "Card",
"version": "1.0",
"name": {
"components": [
{ "kind": "given", "value": "Hayao" },
{ "kind": "surname", "value": "Miyazaki" }
]
},
"addresses": {
"a1": {
"full": "71 Cherry Court, Somewhere, 123SO, UK"
}
},
"emails": {
"e1": {
"address": "hayao@example.com"
}
},
"localizations": {
"jp": {
"name": {
"components": [
{ "kind": "surname", "value": "宮崎" },
{ "kind": "given", "value": "駿" }
]
}
}
}
}
Note that:
* The Address, Card, Name, and NameComponent object values only
contain properties for which a property entry exists in the
profile.
* The EmailAddress object contains the "address" property. This is
allowed because the profile contains a property entry for the
"emails" property of the Card object, but it does not define
entries for the EmailAddress object properties. Consequently, all
properties of the EmailAddress object can be set.
* The "full" property of the Address object is set. It is the only
property allowed to be set in that profile for Address, and the
"full" property is mandatory for this profile.
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* The "kind" property of the the NameComponent objects is set to
"surname" and "given", respectively. Since the profile does not
restrict the enumerated values of this property, all valid
NameComponent "kind" property values are supported.
* The "kind" property of the Card object is not set. The profile
restricts the enumerated values of this property to "individual"
and "org". Since "individual" is the default value for this
property, there is no need to set it.
5. IANA Considerations
5.1. Creation of the JSContact Profile Registry
IANA will add the "JSContact Profile" registry to the "JSContact"
registry group. The purpose of this new registry is to register
profiles for JSContact data. The registry policy to add a new
profile to this registry is "Specification Required", while the
registry policy to update an existing profile is "Expert Review".
The change controller is IETF.
Designated experts assert that all proposed assignments are valid
according to the definitions in this document, e.g. they check that
the profile name is unique, that the entries in the profile entries
are syntactically valid, that only known property names are referred
to, that type restrictions do not incorrectly alter the type of a
property, and that the version number increases. On the other hand,
designated experts do not decide the contents of the profile as long
as the assignments are valid.
An entry in this registry consists of the following assignments, all
of which MUST be set:
Name:
This is the name of the profile. This field is immutable after
creation. The name MUST be unique among all registered profiles
and MUST comply with the definitions in Section 3.1.
Version:
This is the version number of the profile. It MUST comply with
the definitions in Section 3.2.
Reference:
This refers to the specifications of the protocol or use case for
which this profile applies. The reference MUST must include the
section number or name that defines or updates the property
entries for this profile, as defined in Section 3.3.
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5.2. Initial Contents of the JSContact Profile Registry
This document does not define any initial contents for the newly
created registries.
6. Security Considerations
This document does not provide new security considerations. The
security considerations of Section 4 of [RFC9553] apply.
7. References
7.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
[RFC5234] Crocker, D., Ed. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5234, January 2008,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5234>.
[RFC6901] Bryan, P., Ed., Zyp, K., and M. Nottingham, Ed.,
"JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) Pointer", RFC 6901,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6901, April 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6901>.
[RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.
[RFC9553] Stepanek, R. and M. Loffredo, "JSContact: A JSON
Representation of Contact Data", RFC 9553,
DOI 10.17487/RFC9553, May 2024,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9553>.
7.2. Informative References
[RFC6350] Perreault, S., "vCard Format Specification", RFC 6350,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6350, August 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6350>.
[RFC6352] Daboo, C., "CardDAV: vCard Extensions to Web Distributed
Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV)", RFC 6352,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6352, August 2011,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6352>.
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[RFC9610] Jenkins, N., Ed., "JSON Meta Application Protocol (JMAP)
for Contacts", RFC 9610, DOI 10.17487/RFC9610, December
2024, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9610>.
Appendix A. Supported Properties Example
The following illustrates how to determine the supported properties
of the example profile (Section 4), according to the steps defined in
Section 3.4:
1. We initialize the set of supported properties with all profile
properties for which the property context includes the "Card"
object. The set now includes the properties:
* Card.addresses
* Card.emails
* Card.kind
* Card.localizations
* Card.name
2. Next, we determine which of the properties in the current set
have an object type as value type. These are the "Card.address",
"Card.emails" and "Card.name" properties, so we need to inspect
the object types "Address", "EmailAddress" and "Name".
3. For the "Address" object type, the profile has an entry for the
"full" property which contains the "Address" object in the
Property Context, so we add that and only that to the set of
supported properties. It now contains:
* Address.full
* Card.addresses
* Card.emails
* Card.kind
* Card.localizations
* Card.name
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The value type of the "Address.full" property is not an object
type, so we need not consider a new object type to inspect. The
remaining object types to inspect are the "EmailAddress" and
"Name" objects.
4. For the "EmailAddress" object type, the profile does not contain
any entry where the Property Context contains the "EmailAddress"
object. Instead, we add properties of the "JSContact Properties"
registry where the property context includes the "EmailAddress"
object. The set of supported properties now contains:
* Address.full
* Card.addresses
* Card.emails
* Card.kind
* Card.localizations
* Card.name
* EmailAddress.address
* EmailAddress.contexts
* EmailAddress.label
* EmailAddress.pref
None of the newly added properties have object value types. The
remaining object type to inspect is the "Name" object.
5. For the "Name" object type, the profile explicitly lists the
"components" and "full" properties, so we add them to the set of
supported properties. It now contains:
* Address.full
* Card.addresses
* Card.emails
* Card.kind
* Card.localizations
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* Card.name
* EmailAddress.address
* EmailAddress.contexts
* EmailAddress.label
* EmailAddress.pref
* Name.full
* Name.components
The newly added Name.components property has object value type
"NameComponent", so we add that to the list of object types to
inspect.
6. For the "NameComponent" object type, the profile does not
explicitly list any property. Instead, we add properties of the
"JSContact Properties" registry where the property context
includes the "NameComponent" object. The set of supported
properties now contains:
* Address.full
* Card.addresses
* Card.emails
* Card.kind
* Card.localizations
* Card.name
* EmailAddress.address
* EmailAddress.contexts
* EmailAddress.label
* EmailAddress.pref
* NameComponent.kind
* NameComponent.phonetic
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* NameComponent.value
None of the newly added properties have object value types and
there are no remaining object types to inspect. This determines
the set of supported properties by that profile, in addition to
the "Card.version" and "@type" property that are always
supported.
Authors' Addresses
Robert Stepanek
Fastmail
PO Box 234
Collins St. West
Melbourne VIC 8007
Australia
Email: rsto@fastmailteam.com
Mario Loffredo
IIT-CNR
Via Moruzzi, 1
56124 Pisa
Italy
Email: mario.loffredo@iit.cnr.it
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