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wolfCOSE Documentation

Welcome to the wolfCOSE wiki. This is the complete documentation for wolfCOSE, a lightweight CBOR and COSE library for embedded systems.

What is wolfCOSE?

wolfCOSE is a C library implementing:

• CBOR (RFC 8949): Concise Binary Object Representation
• COSE (RFC 9052/9053): CBOR Object Signing and Encryption

It uses wolfSSL as the cryptographic backend and is designed for constrained IoT devices, FIPS-bounded deployments, and anywhere you need authenticated CBOR payloads in minimal RAM.

Key Features

Feature	Description
Post-quantum signing	ML-DSA (Dilithium) at all three security levels
Zero allocation	All operations use caller-provided buffers, no malloc
Tiny footprint	Core library is ~15KB .text, zero .data/.bss
26 algorithms	Signing, encryption, and MAC across classical and post-quantum
CNSA 2.0 ready	ML-DSA-44/65/87 for quantum-resistant signatures
MISRA-C:2023	compliance striving, Single-exit pattern, no recursion, deviation-logged

Documentation

Page	Description
Getting Started	Prerequisites, building, and quick start examples
Algorithms	Complete list of supported algorithms with COSE IDs
API Reference	Full API documentation for all functions
Macros	Configuration macros and compile-time options
Testing	Unit tests, coverage, and failure injection
Project Structure	Source code layout and file descriptions

Supported Message Types

wolfCOSE implements all six COSE message types from RFC 9052:

Message Type	Tag	Description
COSE_Sign1	18	Single signer digital signature
COSE_Sign	98	Multiple signers
COSE_Encrypt0	16	Symmetric encryption (single key)
COSE_Encrypt	96	Multi-recipient encryption
COSE_Mac0	17	Symmetric MAC (single key)
COSE_Mac	97	Multi-recipient MAC

Quick Links

• GitHub Repository
• wolfSSL Website
• RFC 8949 (CBOR)
• RFC 9052 (COSE Structures)
• RFC 9053 (COSE Algorithms)

License

wolfCOSE is free software licensed under GPLv3. For commercial licensing and support, contact wolfSSL.