Shielded Vote Full Node Setup

Run A Full Node

Run a regular Shielded Vote full node to follow the chain from a verified snapshot and independently check finalized vote tallies. This is not a validator: it does not generate validator keys, join the validator set, run a vote-share helper, or expose a public URL.

Provision The Full Node Host

Minimum recommendation before restoring the latest zvote-1 snapshot.

Platform
Linux amd64

CPU
2 vCPU

Memory
4 GB RAM

Storage
120 GB NVMe

Linux arm64 is also supported. macOS is useful for local development and audit work.
Run The Full-Node Installer

The installer discovers the active chain version from voting config, downloads the matching svoted release, validates genesis, restores the latest snapshot, and installs a local service.
```
curl -fsSL https://shielded-vote.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/join-full.sh | bash
```
Wait For The Tip

The installer exits after catching_up=false. After that, keep the service running so your local state continues to track the chain tip.
```
svoted status --home ~/.svoted-full | jq '{height: .sync_info.latest_block_height, catching_up: .sync_info.catching_up}'
```

Install Source Build Requirements

Use the active chain version reported by the public seed node.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y curl git jq lz4 ca-certificates build-essential pkg-config clang lld
command -v mise >/dev/null 2>&1 || curl https://mise.run | sh
export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$HOME/go/bin:$PATH"

Build The Active Chain Version

git clone https://github.com/valargroup/vote-sdk.git
cd vote-sdk
mise install
VOTING_CONFIG_URL="${VOTING_CONFIG_URL:-https://voting.valargroup.org/prod/dynamic-voting-config.json}"
VOTING_CONFIG=$(curl -fsSL "$VOTING_CONFIG_URL")
SEED_URL=$(echo "$VOTING_CONFIG" | jq -r '.vote_servers[0].url')
NODE_INFO=$(curl -fsSL "${SEED_URL%/}/cosmos/base/tendermint/v1beta1/node_info")
CHAIN_BINARY_VERSION=$(echo "$NODE_INFO" | jq -r '.application_version.version')
git fetch --tags
git checkout "$CHAIN_BINARY_VERSION"
mise install
mise run build:quick

Initialize, Restore Snapshot, And Start

The automatic script is the canonical reference for manual steps. It keeps the node observer-only.
```
SVOTE_LOCAL_BINARIES=1 SVOTE_SKIP_SERVICE=1 ./join-full.sh
svoted start --home ~/.svoted-full
```

Verify A Tally

Once a round is finalized, use your synced full node to re-run the threshold tally check locally. The command recombines validator partial decryptions and checks them against the finalized totals.

Enable Local REST Queries If Needed

svoted query talks to the local CometBFT RPC by default. Enable REST only when you also want to inspect JSON responses through localhost:1317.
```
APP_TOML="${SVOTE_HOME:-$HOME/.svoted-full}/config/app.toml"
sed -i.bak '/\[api\]/,/\[.*\]/ s/enable = false/enable = true/' "$APP_TOML"
sudo systemctl restart svoted-full
```

Run The Verifier

svoted query vote verify-tally <round-id-hex> --node tcp://localhost:26657

Inspect The Published Result

ROUND_ID="<round-id-hex>"
curl -fsS "http://127.0.0.1:1317/shielded-vote/v1/tally-results/${ROUND_ID}" | jq
curl -fsS "http://127.0.0.1:1317/shielded-vote/v1/vote-summary/${ROUND_ID}" | jq

Cross-Check The Ratified Key

Wallets surface a round only when the coordinator configuration attests to the round's election-authority key. Compare the ea_pk in your local round query with the matching round attestation in dynamic-voting-config.json.

ROUND_ID="<round-id-hex>"
curl -fsS "http://127.0.0.1:1317/shielded-vote/v1/round/${ROUND_ID}" | jq '.round.ea_pk'
curl -fsS https://voting.valargroup.org/prod/dynamic-voting-config.json | jq --arg round_id "$ROUND_ID" '.rounds[]? | select(.vote_round_id == $round_id)'

Node Operations

Linux logs. journalctl -u svoted-full -f
macOS logs. tail -f ~/.svoted-full/node.log
Status. svoted status --home ~/.svoted-full
Reset from scratch. Re-run with SVOTE_FORCE_RESET=1.

Full Node Setup

Run A Full Node

Provision The Full Node Host

Run The Full-Node Installer

Wait For The Tip