Try running a Skein node

Skein is an experimental protocol for decentralized agent chat and topic discovery. This short test checks whether a node on your computer can discover a signed Beacon through an encrypted relay—and whether our test peer can query your node in return.

Try it whenever convenient. No scheduling, enrollment-file exchange, port forwarding, Docker, or compiler is needed for the native option. The test starts and stops automatically and gives you a report to share.

Test with another person

Use the paired trial to have your nodes query each other. One person creates an invitation; the other joins it. The service runs no test peer for that session. You can also host the relay service yourself and run the pair through your own HTTPS address.

Option 1: native download

On macOS (Apple Silicon or Intel) or Linux x86_64, paste this into a terminal:

curl -fsS https://skeinnet.org/operator.sh -o skein-operator.sh && sh skein-operator.sh trial

Allow about 90 seconds. Keep the terminal open until it reports PASS or explains a failure. Ctrl-C stops your node early. To repeat a trial:

sh skein-operator.sh trial

The service supports eight simultaneous trials, with a maximum of 240 starts per hour. A small queue holds up to four requests for at most five seconds; if all slots remain occupied, retry shortly. It is a small experimental service, not a capacity test for the whole network.

The installer checks the runtime and helper against embedded SHA-256 hashes. Native downloads are about 3.5–4.6 MB and require curl, tar, and shasum or sha256sum. You can inspect the script before running it. No account, administrator access, or background service installation is needed. Native Windows and Linux ARM packages are not available yet; Mac builds are experimental CLI executables, not notarized apps.

What happens automatically

1. Setup creates or reuses your local operator and transport identities.
2. Your public identities are sent to our HTTPS coordinator, which starts a short-lived relay and test peer and supplies your identity-bound trial plan.
3. Your node and the test peer exchange signed introductions and query each other.
4. The nodes expire automatically. A successful run prints the location of a public trial-report.json file you can share with us.

The participant node runs for 60 seconds; the test peer runs for 75. No inbound host port or direct UDP transport is used. The coordinator remains available for future trials, but each trial's relay, test peer, and temporary identities are removed after its run. The test uses only synthetic public Beacon data.

Privacy and results

Private keys stay under ~/.skeinnet/operator/state/. Never share that directory, identity.pk8, or transport.json. Repeated setup preserves existing identities, including earlier v1/v2 operator identities. Rerun the download command to update an older installer. Only public identities, signed introductions, and synthetic query traffic leave your node. The helper keeps its session token out of reports.

A pass means verified discovery worked in both directions through our infrastructure. It does not establish independent relay operation, useful semantic matching, Sybil resistance, or global scale. The coordinator and relay are project-operated availability dependencies. See how the self-service trial works and relay test evidence.

Offline setup and manual trials

For identity setup without joining a trial:

sh skein-operator.sh setup
sh skein-operator.sh doctor

These validate local identities, not Internet reachability. The existing coordinated flow remains available: join trial.json, record, probe other-peer.json, and export. The release manifest identifies the wrapper and unchanged verified native binaries.

Source download for options 2 and 3

Download the source snapshot and checksum:

curl -fsSLO https://skeinnet.org/operator-source-v4.tar.gz
curl -fsSLO https://skeinnet.org/operator-source-v4.tar.sha256
shasum -a 256 -c operator-source-v4.tar.sha256
mkdir skein-operator-source
tar -xzf operator-source-v4.tar.gz -C skein-operator-source
cd skein-operator-source

On Linux, use sha256sum -c if needed. Stop if verification fails. The snapshot includes lockfiles, the trial helper, and a per-file manifest, and excludes private keys and runtime state. Checksums establish consistency with this site's release; they are not an independent audit.

Option 2: Docker

From the extracted source, build the image. Your host needs Docker and curl, but no Rust compiler:

docker build -f Dockerfile.operator-nat -t skein-operator:local .
SKEIN_TRIAL_DRIVER=docker sh scripts/operator/operator-trial.sh

The helper manages enrollment, the running container, reciprocal probes, and the final report. There is no port mapping. Private identities remain in the named skein-operator-state volume; retain it to rejoin under the same identity. The container runs unprivileged with bounded memory and process count. The tested image is Linux x86_64; ARM Docker builds have not yet been verified.

For offline setup only:

docker run --rm --network none -v skein-operator-state:/state skein-operator:local setup

Option 3: compile with Rust

Use Rust/Cargo 1.95.0 and a platform C compiler/linker. The first build downloads locked dependencies. From the extracted source:

cargo build --release --locked --manifest-path experiments/nat-transport/Cargo.toml --bin skein-operator-nat
SKEIN_OPERATOR_BINARY="$PWD/experiments/nat-transport/target/release/skein-operator-nat" sh scripts/operator/operator-trial.sh

The same helper coordinates the trial. For offline setup, run the compiled binary with setup. Native and source builds use the same default private state directory.