# Identity Manager Quick Start
Source: https://docs.chain.link/ace/getting-started/identity-manager
Last Updated: 2026-05-26

> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt).

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This guide walks you through the **Identity Manager** — the ACE component for managing identity registries, registering cross-chain identities (CCIDs), and issuing credentials such as Proof of Identity, accreditation proofs, or sanctions clearance. By the end you will have identities registered and credentials issued on a supported network.

### 1. Prerequisites

- Familiarity with [Cross-Chain Identity](/ace/concepts/cross-chain-identity) concepts — CCIDs, credential registries, credential types, and credential sources
- **Must-read before proceeding:** [Signing & Ownership Model](/ace/concepts/signing-ownership) — understand how ACE manages keys, who owns what, and how the delegated trust model works

### 2. Account setup

Complete the [Account Setup](/ace/getting-started/account-setup) steps — organization creation, API key generation, and CRE Connect Wallet deployment — before proceeding.

### 3. Set up your registries

A **registry** is the top-level resource that groups an **identity registry** and a **credential registry**, deployed together on each chain you operate on.

- The identity registry maps wallet addresses to cross-chain identities (CCIDs)
- The credential registry stores credential attestations linked to those CCIDs

See [Managing Registries](/ace/guides/identity-manager/manage-registries) for full details.

### 4. Define credential types

Credential types represent the categories of attestation you issue — for example, Proof of Identity, accredited investor, or sanctions clearance. Each credential type is scoped to a specific registry and identified by a `credential_type` string that gets hashed on-chain to a `credential_type_hash`. This value is hashed using keccak256 — the standard cryptographic hash function used by Ethereum and EVM-compatible blockchains — and the resulting `credential_type_hash` is what gets recorded on-chain and referenced by policies.

### 5. Register identities and issue credentials

A cross-chain identity (CCID) aggregates one or more wallet addresses across EVM chains into a single logical entity. When you register an identity, you provide the on-chain addresses that belong to that entity and ACE writes the mapping into the identity registry on each relevant chain.

A single CCID can span multiple chains and addresses — for example, one entity might have wallets on Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Avalanche that all resolve to the same CCID.

Credentials are attestations linked to a registered identity. During Beta, ACE uses an **attestation-only** model — the Identity Manager asserts that a credential holds for a given CCID, and the credential registry records that attestation on-chain.

### 6. Verify via Reporting

After issuing credentials, confirm they are visible and queryable through the **Reporting Manager**. The Reporting Manager provides a read-only view of all identities and credentials across your registries, which Policy Managers rely on when evaluating identity-based policies at transaction time.

- Open the <a href="/api/ace/reporting/docs" target="_blank">Reporting API</a> to query credentials by identity, entity, or registry
- See [Reporting](/ace/concepts/reporting) for details on how reporting data flows into policy evaluation

Once credentials appear in reporting, Policy Managers can reference them in identity-based policies such as the [Credential Registry Identity Validator](/ace/reference/policy-library/credential-registry-identity-validator-policy).

### 7. What's next

Explore the detailed guides for each Identity Manager workflow:

- [Managing Identities](/ace/guides/identity-manager/manage-identities) — add, update, and remove CCIDs and their on-chain address mappings
- [Managing Credential Types](/ace/guides/identity-manager/manage-credential-types) — create and organize the credential categories your registry supports
- [Managing Credentials](/ace/guides/identity-manager/manage-credentials) — issue, revoke, and set expiration on credentials
- [Managing Registries](/ace/guides/identity-manager/manage-registries) — view and manage your identity and credential registry deployments