Introduction

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Dugite is a Cardano node implementation written in Rust, aiming for 100% compatibility with cardano-node (Haskell).

Built by Sandstone Pool.

CI

Why Dugite?

The Cardano ecosystem benefits from client diversity. Running multiple independent node implementations strengthens the network by:

  • Resilience — A bug in one implementation does not bring down the entire network.
  • Performance — Rust's zero-cost abstractions and memory safety without garbage collection enable high-throughput block processing.
  • Verification — An independent implementation validates the Cardano specification against the reference Haskell node, catching ambiguities and edge cases.
  • Accessibility — A Rust codebase broadens the pool of developers who can contribute to Cardano infrastructure.

Key Features

  • Full Ouroboros Praos consensus — Slot leader checks, VRF validation, KES period tracking, epoch nonce computation.
  • Multi-era support — Byron, Shelley, Allegra, Mary, Alonzo, Babbage, Conway, and Dijkstra eras.
  • Conway governance (CIP-1694) — DRep registration, voting, proposals, constitutional committee, treasury withdrawals.
  • Pipelined sync — ChainSync headers are pipelined per peer (default depth 300, tunable via DUGITE_PIPELINE_DEPTH), decoupled from block fetching. Bulk block fetch uses a single active fetch slot contested by the fastest peers, mirroring cardano-node's maxConcurrencyBulkSync = 1.
  • Plutus script execution — Plutus V1/V2/V3 (and V4 from Dijkstra) evaluation via the in-house dugite-uplc CEK machine (fully conformant, all 999 upstream test vectors pass).
  • Node-to-Node (N2N) protocol — Full Ouroboros mini-protocol suite: ChainSync, BlockFetch, TxSubmission2, KeepAlive, PeerSharing.
  • Node-to-Client (N2C) protocol — Unix domain socket server with LocalChainSync, LocalStateQuery, LocalTxSubmission, and LocalTxMonitor.
  • UTxO RPC (gRPC) server — Optional native utxorpc server (sync, query, submit, watch) with reflection and gRPC-Web support. See UTxO RPC.
  • cardano-cli compatible CLI — Key generation, transaction building, signing, submission, queries, and governance commands.
  • Prometheus metrics — Real-time node metrics on port 12796 by default (deliberately offset from cardano-node's 12798 so both can run on one host).
  • P2P networking — Peer manager with cold/warm/hot lifecycle, DNS multi-resolution (A/AAAA/SRV), ledger-based peer discovery, and inbound rate limiting.
  • ChainSync Jumping (CSJ) — Phase A Ouroboros Genesis support: dynamic intersection discovery across multiple peers for faster tip-of-chain recovery.
  • Mithril snapshot import — Fast initial sync by importing a Mithril-certified snapshot.
  • SIGHUP topology reload — Update peer configuration without restarting the node.

Project Status

Dugite is in early development and is NOT recommended for production use. APIs, storage formats, and on-chain behavior may change without notice. Ledger validation is incomplete and may accept invalid transactions or reject valid ones. Do not use this software to operate a stake pool, manage real funds, or participate in mainnet governance. Use at your own risk on testnets only.

Dugite is under active development. It can sync against both the Cardano mainnet and preview/preprod testnets. The node implements the full N2N and N2C protocol stacks, ledger validation, epoch transitions with stake snapshots and reward distribution, and Conway-era governance.

For a detailed checklist of implemented and pending features, see the Developer Wiki.

License

Dugite is released under the Apache-2.0 License.