Fork documentation

A business fork, which SourceLess calls Vanaheim, is a new and independent chain started from the SourceLess software: its own genesis, its own chain id, its own validators and its own assembly. It runs the same code as Asgard, so it has contracts, STR.domains, encrypted storage and STR.talk from its first block. It shares nothing else with Asgard: no validators, no state and no governance. Nothing in Asgard governs it.

One command, node scripts/fork.mjs, builds the genesis, starts the validator set and prints the genesis hash and the endpoints. A fork it starts with derived keys is a rehearsal; a fork started from private production keys is a chain that can carry value.

Most projects want a token. A ZK13 token on Asgard is one deploy record, inherits the security of the SourceLess validators, and can be replaced by deploying another. A fork is a validator set you operate for the life of the chain, and its genesis cannot be undone.

Fork only when at least one of these is true:

• your asset must be native to the chain, not a balance in a contract;
• your data must not sit on a chain other people read;
• your regulator requires you to operate the validators.

If none is, start from the token template instead.

• A build of the SourceLess software. scripts/fork.mjs runs from the source tree and starts nodes from its build, so run npm ci and npm run build first.
• Node.js 20.11 or later. The version the package declares; the measured runs used Node 22.
• One machine to rehearse on. Every seat of a rehearsal runs as a process on the machine that runs the command, on ports the operating system chooses, all on loopback.
• For a chain that will carry value: production keys made privately with SourceLess, one host per seat, and a public address, a domain name and TLS for the endpoints you publish.

One command starts a rehearsal. The command builder writes it for the values you choose.

node scripts/fork.mjs up --name "Lindworm Freight" --chain-id 606060 --validators 3 \
  --allocate treasury:STR:1000000:STR.lindwormtreasury \
  --allocate ecosystem:STR:250000 \
  --heartbeat-ms 1500

Every flag:

The banner prints the chain, the genesis hash, the register's verdict (no realm matches: this is a fork), the validator set, and for every node its seat and its endpoints.

node scripts/fork.mjs status     # what every node holds right now
node scripts/fork.mjs seed       # give the chain work, so it advances
node scripts/fork.mjs down       # stop, keeping the chain
node scripts/fork.mjs up ...     # again: resumes from the durable log
node scripts/fork.mjs --help     # answers, and starts nothing

• An idle chain that does not advance is not a fault. A producer with an empty queue seals nothing. Use seed, or start with --heartbeat-ms.
• seed spends from the treasury. On a rehearsal it proves the treasury, registers four accounts and sends them transfers. On a production fork it refuses, because the treasury key is held by people and the script has none: fund accounts from a wallet that holds a production key, against the fork's RPC.
• status, seed and down find the fork from --root, from --name and --chain-id, or from the one fork that is there.

Every port is ephemeral: the command binds no fixed port, so it cannot collide with anything already running. The ports of your run are in the banner and in <data root>/fork.json. Every one is loopback. A published endpoint, a domain name, TLS and a seed list are separate work, and a node refuses to publish a loopback or private address as a seed, because a seed list is read by strangers.

A production fork's keys are made with SourceLess before launch. Then node scripts/fork.mjs up --genesis <file> --seat <dir> --seat <dir> … starts the chain from its genesis, one --seat per seat the genesis declares.

• Both keystores on every node are sealed, and nodes run in production mode, so an unsealed validator is refused.
• On the production path the command refuses outright when SOURCELESS_KEY_PASSPHRASE is not set.
• A rehearsal's keys are not custody, and the script says so on every run.

Every genesis seat carries the same voting power, 50. A parameter change passes at 51% of the total, rounded up, so the bar is ceil(seats × 50 × 51 / 100). On a small fork that is very few seats:

Compute your bar and publish it. Adding or removing a seat after genesis is a governance action, at a 30-day delay.

• Fixed for ever: the chain name and the chain id, both in the genesis hash; the allocations; and everything bound to the hash. Transaction, block and contract signatures bind it, so none replays onto another chain, and the Feeless Pool address is derived from it.
• Changeable by your assembly, each after its delay:

Every contract template in this build deploys on a fork. Fork contracts lists them, and each has a draft builder: edit its constants, see the bytecode and the address, download the file.

• The same compiler gives the same bytecode, the same STARW VM charges the same gas, and the same deployer and salt give the same address.
• The state is your fork's alone, and contract state cannot be migrated across a genesis boundary.
• A deploy is signed by an account holding a proved STR.domain on your fork. There is no fee to a producer.
• A deployment of a template still carrying its catalogue examples (an "Example" name, an example ticker) is refused before a passphrase is asked for.

strblk contract template <name> > <name>.ares
strblk wallet deploy <name>.ares --dry-run --address <you>
strblk wallet deploy <name>.ares --node <your fork's RPC>

Before it signs, the wallet prints the network it is about to sign for: on your fork the realm reads unregistered, and the genesis is your fork's hash. That hash is what the signature binds.

• No shared security. Your blocks are sealed by your seats and by nobody else. The SourceLess validators do not see your chain, hold no key on it, and could not help it if every one of your nodes went down.
• No bridge. There is no path for value to move between your chain and SourceLess, or anything else. A fork is created fail-closed: it mints no $TR and refuses every collateral record.
• Your own validator set to recruit. The genesis set is your whole producing capacity on day one, and adding a seat afterwards is a governance action at the 30-day delay.
• Your own custody to perform. A rehearsal fork's keys can be derived by anyone who knows its name and id, so a fork that carries value has its keys made and held privately before it launches.
• No real ZK13 prover. The reference provider refuses to run in production until a real prover is bound.
• No migration path. Contract state cannot be moved onto a fork or off it across a genesis boundary.
• No endpoint anybody else can reach, out of the box. Every port the fork command opens is loopback; a published endpoint, a domain name, TLS and a seed list are separate work.

• The fork stack: what else runs on a fork beside its seats: the three node types, Praeco discovery, hostless storage, STR.talk and the door, each with what works today.
• Realms: the register a fork is checked against.
• Business forks: the short version of this page.