What a directive is
A BitWill directive is a signed, off-chain declaration of intent: it names a beneficiary — by name and contact, optionally with a wallet address — and describes the estate in your own words. Your wallet signs the directive's canonical form; the registry stores the beneficiary details, the directive's hash, your signing address, and the signature. It is a document, in the oldest sense: a durable, attributable statement of will.
What it deliberately is not
The directive holds no keys, no seed phrases, and no power to move funds — the memo field is for describing assets, never for storing secrets, and the Republic will not accept a secret into it. This is the honest boundary of a non-custodial state: the Republic can keep your stated intent faithfully and prove it unaltered by its hash and signature, but the transfer of the assets themselves remains where your keys are — with you, and with whatever arrangements you make for them.
The life of a directive
A directive stands as ACTIVE until you revoke it or replace it; signing a new one supersedes the old, and every state is recorded with its date. Because each directive is wallet-signed, a beneficiary or executor can later verify — against the signature and hash — that the document they hold is exactly what you signed. Pair the directive with a signed certificate for statements you want independently verifiable by serial.