Asentum Operator — Desktop App

TL;DR

Asentum Operator turns any Mac or Windows PC into a validator node — no terminal, no config files, no SSH. The app spawns a real Asentum full node as a child process, handles wallet creation and staking through a GUI, and minimizes to the system tray so the node keeps producing blocks while you go about your day. It runs the same binary as the VPS validators — same consensus code, same Dilithium3 signatures, same 2-second blocks. The only difference is the onboarding.

What Operator does

• Runs a full Asentum node. A child process validates every block from genesis using the same binary as the VPS cluster.
• Handles your wallet. Dilithium3 keypair generation, scrypt + AES-GCM-256 password encryption, receive and send flows.
• Stakes for you. Build, sign, and broadcast the bond transaction through a single password-prompt form.
• Shows live chain state. Block height, peer count, consensus quorum, validator status (active / pending / tombstoned), stake, earnings.
• Participates in governance. Browse and vote on on-chain proposals from the Governance tab.

For who should run which kind of node, see Node Types.

Install the app

Installer downloads for macOS and Windows will be listed at asentum.com/download when public release lands. The installers are standard OS-native packages:

• macOS — signed + notarized .dmg (universal binary, Apple Silicon + Intel).
• Windows — signed .exe installer (x64).
• Linux — .AppImage and .deb (x64 and arm64).

Prefer the terminal? Install the CLI — it wraps the same node binary with a non-interactive interface.

First launch

A full-screen overlay walks you through two required steps before the main app unlocks:

1. Create your wallet. Choose a password (min 8 chars), confirm, click Create. A Dilithium3 keypair is generated and encrypted with scrypt (N=131072) + AES-GCM-256. Key derivation takes about 2 seconds. Your secret key never exists unencrypted on disk.
2. Sync the blockchain. A circular progress bar shows live sync state — block height, blocks-per-second, dynamic ETA. You can't skip this. Validators need the full chain. Typical first sync is 2–10 minutes depending on connection.

When sync hits 100%, the button becomes Enter Asentum Operator and you're in.

The dashboard

The dashboard adapts to your validator status. Three states:

• Not staked — shows the fund → stake flow. Request test ASE from the faucet, enter your password, click "Stake 1,000 ASE & Start Validating."
• Pending — your stake just landed. "Pending — activating in a few blocks." Asentum uses a graceful quorum transition that gives new validators ~10 blocks before inclusion.
• Active ✓ — you're producing blocks. The dashboard shows stake, bonded-at block, wallet balance, and a live node status panel with block height, peers, and consensus quorum.

Staking from the GUI

When you click Stake, Operator:

1. Prompts for your password in an inline field (not a system dialog).
2. Decrypts your Dilithium3 secret key via scrypt + AES-GCM.
3. Builds a bond(pubKey, 1000 ASE) transaction targeting the staking system contract.
4. Signs it with your secret key and broadcasts to the network.
5. Shows a macOS-style toast with the tx hash and a "View on explorer →" link.
6. Transitions the dashboard through Pending → Active as the chain processes your bond.

Zero terminal. Zero config. For what you're agreeing to when you stake, see Slashing Risks.

Running in the background

Closing the window does not stop your node. Operator minimizes to the system tray, the node keeps producing blocks, and a right-click menu gives you status + Quit.

If you want your node to start at login, enable Settings → Launch at login. For monitoring and logs, see Monitoring & Logs.

Governance

The Governance tab lists all on-chain proposals with their status, tier (hard vs soft), vote totals, and countdown. Validators can vote directly from the tab — the app signs and broadcasts the vote transaction.

Proposal creation from the GUI is landing next. For the full protocol-governance model, see Protocol Governance.

Under the hood

• Electron app. Main process (Node.js) handles wallet + child-process orchestration; renderer is a lightweight SPA.
• Same node binary as the VPS cluster. The app spawns packages/node/dist/bin/run.js. Data directory lives in your OS user-data folder.
• Auto-peered. On first run the app is configured to join testnet.asentum.com and discover peers via the existing VPS validators.
• Auto-updates. When public release lands, the app will self-update from signed release artifacts.

For the architecture story end-to-end — what BFT, SMT, SES, JSON-RPC, and HTTP peer fan-out actually do — see Architecture.