Run a validator

One command. Earn $ENSL by storing agent consciousness and producing blocks.

Quick start

npx ensoul-node --validate

That's it. Your node will:

  1. Generate a unique Ed25519 validator identity
  2. Connect to bootstrap peers on the Ensoul network
  3. Begin storing consciousness shards from agents
  4. Participate in round-robin block production
  5. Earn block rewards + storage fees in $ENSL

Configuration

# Custom data directory and port
npx ensoul-node --validate --data-dir /data/ensoul --port 9000

# Allocate more storage (default: 10 GB)
npx ensoul-node --validate --storage 50

# Custom bootstrap peer
npx ensoul-node --validate --bootstrap /ip4/192.168.1.100/tcp/9000

What happens under the hood

Block production

Validators take turns producing blocks in a deterministic round-robin schedule. At 6-second block times, each validator produces a block every N * 6 seconds, where N is the total validator count.

Storage-for-validation swap

Validators store encrypted consciousness shards for agents. In return, agents pay storage fees in $ENSL. Validators also earn block rewards from the network emission schedule (~19 $ENSL/block in year 1).

Proof of storage

The network periodically challenges validators to prove they still hold the shards they claim to store. Validators that fail challenges get slashed. This ensures data integrity without trust.

Multi-validator cluster

For production deployments across multiple machines:

# Machine 1: Initialize 10 validators
ensoul-cluster init --validators 10 --base-port 9000 \
  --data-dir /data/ensoul --advertise-host 192.168.1.10 \
  --export-dids dids-machine1.json

# Coordinator: Merge all DIDs into genesis
ensoul-cluster genesis \
  --import dids-m1.json,dids-m2.json,dids-m3.json,dids-m4.json \
  --output genesis.json

# All machines: Start with shared genesis
ensoul-cluster start --data-dir /data/ensoul --genesis genesis.json

Check your earnings

# Node status
npx ensoul-node status

# Via API
curl http://localhost:3000/status

Hardware requirements