The registrant's handbook

1 October 2026. This is the one page a registrant needs: what a DOI registered here is, how to get one, how to keep it right, and where everything else is written down. It follows ISO 26324:2025, which asks the body that runs a DOI registry to give its registrants "a handbook … which shall specify implementation details" (Annex C.4). The rules it summarises are the [rules of the registry](rules.php), the metadata format and the [policies](policies.php); where this page and those disagree, those win.

1. Who registers, and what with

A registrant is the publisher, journal, institution, society or person answerable for the works under a prefix. A registrant acts here in one of three ways: through a member's account linked to it (the console, [dashboard](dashboard.php)); through a program holding the registry key (the [API](api.php), header X-Registry-Token); or, today, through Smart Scholars operating its Crossref account, in which case every DOI registered there is read into this registry as well (rules, section 9).

A prefix is 10. followed by the registrant code, held by one registrant at a time. Its status is test (names resolve only through this registry), live, or retired (no new names; every existing one kept). Its suffix rule decides how names are minted: a pattern the journal already uses (jst.2025.v10.i12.pp35-41) or opaque names (k7m2-p9tq).

2. A DOI in five steps

1. Take a name. Reserve one you choose (reserve), or have the registry mint one from the prefix's rule (mint). A name is <prefix>/<suffix>, at most 300 characters, no white space, compared case-insensitively; once given it is never given again (rules, section 2).
2. Write the record. One record per DOI in the Smart Scholars DOI Metadata Format 1.0: what the work is (its type and form), its title(s), its authors and publisher, its date, the journal or book it sits in with ISSN or ISBN, volume, issue and pages, its other identifiers, its links, and what is not in the standard but is needed every day — the abstract, the licence, the references. A record that breaks a rule of the format is refused with every reason in words, and nothing is written.
3. Register. register {doi, url, record} — the record and the address the DOI resolves to. Before writing, the registry checks the format, the address, and that the work is not already registered under another name here: one work, one DOI (ISO 26324, 5.4). If it is, the older name is given back and the way out said — declare the relation IsSameAs if it truly is the same work (both records are then unified), or show in the record how it differs. From 1 January 2027 ([policies 1.1](policies.php), section 2) a new name is also registered only when its record carries the [DOI System Metadata](system-metadata.php) its kind of work needs; until then every record page shows what is missing.
4. Read it back. The record page shows the record, the standard's eight system-metadata elements (ISO 26324:2025, Annex B), the Kernel Metadata Declaration on demand, and the ledger — every change, in order, never rewritten.
5. Resolve it. https://doi.org/<name> once the name is live in the DOI system; this registry's own [resolver](resolve.php) at once, for test prefixes and for reading a record with content negotiation.

3. Keeping it right

Update (update {doi, record}) writes a new version only when something changed, with the field-level difference in the ledger. Address (url {doi, url}) changes the landing page — do it before the old address stops answering; the registry reads every address weekly (politely: two pages of a site at a time, and a site that stops answering the reader is left alone until the next week), lists one that did not answer on two weekly reads on your console with the day it first failed and what was seen, and after 90 days without an answer points the DOI at its own record page here (policies, section 3). Tell the registry within 30 days of a change of name, ownership or contact (policies, section 5). A retraction is not a withdrawal: the article stays, its record says so, and the retraction notice gets a DOI of its own, related to it.

4. Withdraw, restore, transfer

Withdraw (withdraw {doi, reason}) keeps the record and turns the name into a tombstone that says why; a reason is required; nothing is ever deleted. Restore brings it back. A transfer moves a whole prefix to another registrant, and every DOI's history says so (rules, section 7). A registrant that leaves does so with every DOI resolving (policies, section 3).

5. What the world sees

Every record and its history are public: the [record pages](record.php), [search](search.php), the [feed of changes](feed.php), the [bulk export](bulk.php), [citations](cite.php) in four styles, and the [continuity copy](escrow.php) written every night. Programs read the same through the [API](api.php); reading needs no key.

6. Fees, timings, questions

Fees follow the principles in the [policies](policies.php), section 6: a registration fee per DOI (lower for backfiles), no fee for updates, corrections, address changes, withdrawals, restores or transfers, an annual registrant fee by size with the smallest size free, a test prefix free, one published schedule for everyone. The registry registers a sound record within one working day and normally within minutes, answers a question within two working days, and gives 90 days' notice of any new duty or fee (policies, section 5). Questions: mou@smartscholars.in.