STYX

distributed membership that doesnt lie

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what is this

basically a system that tells you if nodes are alive or dead but it doesnt just say true or false like every other system does

the problem with normal health checks is they lie. if the network is slow they say the node is dead when its actually fine. this causes alot of problems

styx returns probabilities instead. like alive 61%, dead 19%, unknown 20%. if it doesnt know it says unknown instead of guessing wrong

why i built this

was frustrated with how membership systems handle uncertainty. they pretend to know things they dont know. kept seeing cascading failures because a slow node got marked dead

so i built this. took a few weeks. still some rough edges but it works

how to use

run the server:

go run cmd/styx-server/main.go

query a node:

curl "http://localhost:8080/query?target=42"

you get back something like:

{
  "alive_confidence": 0.61,
  "dead_confidence": 0.19,
  "unknown": 0.20
}

submit witness report:

curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/report \
  -d '{"witness":10,"target":42,"alive":0.8,"dead":0.1,"unknown":0.1}'

docker

docker pull pawan126/styx
docker run -p 8080:8080 pawan126/styx

or build yourself:

docker build -t styx .
docker run -p 8080:8080 styx

cli

go install github.com/Cintu07/styx/cmd/styx@latest
styx query 42
styx health

main ideas

• if unsure, say unknown (dont guess)
• death is permanent, cant be undone
• multiple witnesses needed for death
• partitioned? refuse to answer
• timeout alone is not enough evidence

whats in here

folder	what it does
types	basic types like nodeid and belief
oracle	main api that you use
api	http server
witness	tracks witness trust
finality	handles death declaration
partition	detects network splits
prediction	tries to predict failures (experimental)
byzantine	crypto signatures for bad actors
economics	staking system (experimental)
k8s	kubernetes manifests
dashboard	web ui (basic)

run tests

go test ./... -v

license

MIT - do whatever you want

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made by pawan