Charon
The Distributed Validator middleware client
This repo contains the source code for the distributed validator client _Charon_ (pronounced 'kharon'); a HTTP middleware client for Ethereum Staking that enables you to safely run a single validator across a group of independent nodes.
Charon is accompanied by a webapp called the [Distributed Validator Launchpad](https://launchpad.obol.org/) for distributed validator key creation.
Charon is used by stakers to distribute the responsibility of running Ethereum Validators across a number of different instances and client implementations.
###### A Distributed Validator Cluster that uses the Charon client to hedge client and hardware failure risks
## Quickstart
The easiest way to test out charon is with the [charon-distributed-validator-cluster](https://github.com/ObolNetwork/charon-distributed-validator-cluster) repo
which contains a docker compose setup for running a full charon cluster on your local machine.
## Documentation
The [Obol Docs](https://docs.obol.tech/) website is the best place to get started.
The important sections are [intro](https://docs.obol.org/learn/charon),
[key concepts](https://docs.obol.tech/docs/int/key-concepts) and [charon](https://docs.obol.tech/docs/charon/intro).
For detailed documentation on this repo, see the [docs](docs) folder:
- [Configuration](docs/configuration.md): Configuring a charon node
- [Architecture](docs/architecture.md): Overview of charon cluster and node architecture
- [Project Structure](docs/structure.md): Project folder structure
- [Branching and Release Model](docs/branching.md): Git branching and release model
- [Go Guidelines](docs/goguidelines.md): Guidelines and principals relating to go development
- [Contributing](docs/contributing.md): How to contribute to charon; githooks, PR templates, etc.
There is always the [charon godocs](https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/obolnetwork/charon) for the source code documentation.
## Project Status
A table detailing Charon compatibility with upstream consensus clients and downstream validators can be found [in the changelog](https://github.com/ObolNetwork/charon/releases) of each release, in the **Compatibility Matrix** section.
## Version compatibility
Considering [semver](https://semver.org) as the project's versioning scheme, two given versions of Charon are:
- **compatible** if their `MAJOR` number is the same, `MINOR` and `PATCH` numbers differ
- **incompatible** if their `MAJOR` number differs
There are several reasons to justify a new `MAJOR` release, for example:
- a new Ethereum hardfork
- an old Ethereum hardfork is removed due to network inactivity
- modifications to the internal P2P network or consensus mechanism requiring deep changes to the codebase
The `charon dkg` subcommand **is more restrictive** than this general compatibility promise; all peers should use matching`MAJOR` and`MINOR` versions of Charon for the DKG process, patch versions may differ though it is recommended to use the latest patch of any version.
