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 Aura slots. 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.

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

Install the app

Download the latest installer from the downloads page:

• macOS - .dmg installer. Open, drag to Applications.
• Windows - .exe installer (x64). Run and follow the setup wizard.

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 or import your wallet. The wallet step has two modes:
   • Create new - choose a password (min 8 chars), confirm, click Create. A Dilithium3 keypair is generated and encrypted with scrypt (N=131072) + AES-GCM-256.
   • Import existing - paste your 64-character validator seed (the same hex the curl|bash installer prints under "BACK UP YOUR PRIVATE KEY"), set a password, click Import. The same seed always derives the same address - your existing on-chain bond follows.
   Either way, 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. Click the fund button and the app funds the new validator from within the app (enough for the bond plus a small gas buffer; the button shows live "Pending…" status while the funds land and auto-retries once if they don't). Then enter your password and click Stake 500 ASE & Start Validating. See the faucet doc for details.
• 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 ✓ - your bond is live and you are a validator candidate. You produce blocks, sign and earn signing rewards while your stake holds one of the 100 signing committee seats, which go to the largest stakes each epoch (cutoff currently about 1,350 ASE; check the explorer's validators page). Below the cutoff the node waits without signing. 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, 500 ASE) transaction targeting the staking system contract (chain-enforced minimum self-bond).
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.

Recovery if local chain data goes stale

The chain's schema can change between releases (for example, the May testnet upgrade added a 16-byte commit bitmap to every block header). When the app updates and finds chain data written by an older version, it can't deserialize the existing blocks and would otherwise crash on launch.

Operator detects this case and routes you to a Recovery screen with a one-click Reset Chain Data & Resync button. It wipes only the block / state / genesis-spec data; your wallet, password, validator key, and any existing on-chain bond are preserved. After the reset, the node downloads a fresh snapshot from the testnet and resumes syncing.

The same flow self-heals stale LevelDB locks - if a previous run was force-quit, Operator clears the residual LOCK files automatically on the next launch instead of failing to open the database.

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

Operator has no governance tab. To propose or vote, use asentum.com/governance with the Asentum Wallet browser extension. For how governance works, 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 explorer.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 Aura + GRANDPA, SMT, SES, JSON-RPC, and HTTP peer fan-out actually do, see Architecture.