Ownership

Ownership is about tracing a resource back to its owning component version. Find a resource in a registry and it looks like any other image: nothing on it points back to the component version it belongs to. The component version lists its resources, but the resources carry no information about the component version.

OCM’s ownership tracking adds that missing reverse link. Given a resource, it lets you find the component version that owns it.

Always the Same Record#

An ownership record carries no timestamp or other varying data, so its content is fully determined by the resource and the owner. The same resource owned by the same component version always produces the same ownership record. Re-running ocm add component-version lands on that same record; the registry sees a duplicate and keeps just one. A resource ends up with exactly one ownership record, however many times it is created.

Ownership Across Transfer#

When you transfer a component version to another registry, OCM brings the ownership records of by-value resources along automatically.

For the full picture of how artifacts move between repositories, see Transfer and Transport.

What’s Next?#

• How-To: Add and Verify Ownership Information — opt a resource into ownership tracking and verify the ownership record.

Related Documentation#

• Concept: Resource Repositories — how OCM stores and authenticates against the registries where resources (and their ownership records) live.
• Concept: Transfer and Transport — how component versions and their resources move between repositories.
• Concept: Signing and Verification — how OCM establishes the authenticity of a component version.
• ADR 0016: Ownership Annotations — the design decision and the alternatives that were considered.