solfleet

Agent-safe fleet management for independent Solana validators and RPC nodes. One config file describes your fleet across devnet, testnet, and mainnet. An MCP server (and a CLI) exposes Solana-aware status, safe in-place upgrades, and health-driven DNS failover to Claude or any MCP client. Every operation that changes a node is dry-run by default, policy-gated, and audited. solfleet never reads or moves your keypairs.

See PLAN.md for the roadmap and design notes.

Architecture

solfleet runs on the operator's machine (or a small VM). It talks to the fleet over JSON-RPC (read) and SSH/scp (act), builds artifacts on a separate build host, computes slot lag against each cluster's reference RPC, and manages failover records at the DNS provider. Every mutation flows through one gate and is written to a SQLite audit log.

flowchart TB
  claude["Claude / any MCP client"]

  subgraph operator["operator machine"]
    mcp["solfleet-mcp (stdio)"]
    cli["solfleet CLI"]
    core["core: probe · safety gate · executor · dns"]
    audit[("audit log (SQLite)")]
    claude -->|MCP| mcp
    mcp --> core
    cli --> core
    core --> audit
  end

  builder["build host (agave + geyser from source)"]
  ref["cluster reference RPC"]
  dns["DNS provider (Cloudflare / Route53)"]

  subgraph fleet["fleet: devnet / testnet / mainnet"]
    rpc["RPC nodes"]
    val["voting validators"]
  end

  core -->|JSON-RPC :8899| rpc
  core -->|JSON-RPC :8899| val
  core -->|SSH / scp| rpc
  core -->|SSH / scp| val
  core -->|SSH build, fetch artifacts| builder
  builder -. "artifact set + sha256" .-> core
  core -->|slot lag / delinquency| ref
  core -->|eject / restore A records| dns

How an in-place upgrade runs

sequenceDiagram
  actor Op as Claude / operator
  participant SF as solfleet
  participant B as build host
  participant N as node
  participant R as reference RPC
  Op->>SF: upgrade node to version (confirm)
  SF->>SF: gate, policy + preflight (else stop)
  SF->>B: build agave + geyser (or reuse cache)
  B-->>SF: artifact set + sha256
  SF->>N: scp artifacts as dest.solfleet-new
  SF->>N: sha256 on node matches builder (else abort)
  alt RPC node
    SF->>N: systemctl stop
    SF->>N: atomic swap (binary + geyser + marker)
    SF->>N: systemctl start
  else voting validator
    SF->>N: atomic swap (binary + geyser + marker)
    SF->>N: agave-validator exit (leader-aware), systemd relaunches
  end
  loop until healthy and caught up
    SF->>R: getSlot
    SF->>N: getHealth / getSlot
  end
  SF->>SF: verify reported version, write audit entry

How failover runs

sequenceDiagram
  participant SF as solfleet watch
  participant N as pool members
  participant R as reference RPC
  participant D as DNS provider
  loop every interval
    SF->>N: getHealth / getSlot
    SF->>R: getSlot (cluster head)
    SF->>SF: per member: unhealthy, lag over limit, or delinquent
    alt every member failing
      SF->>SF: keep current records (never empty the pool)
    else at least one healthy
      SF->>D: ensure TXT ownership marker
      SF->>D: remove A record of each failing member
      SF->>D: add A record of each recovered member
      SF->>SF: write audit entry
    end
  end

Why

• Solana-aware health. A generic health check sees HTTP 200; a Solana node can be 500 slots behind and still return 200. solfleet checks slot lag against the cluster, delinquency, and version drift.
• Build-and-distribute. Agave v3.0 dropped prebuilt validator binaries, so every operator now has to build from source. solfleet builds once on a dedicated builder node (with the ABI-matched Yellowstone geyser .so), caches it, and distributes the artifact set to the fleet.
• Leader-aware restarts. Restarting a voting validator during its own leader slots skips blocks. solfleet restarts validators via a leader-aware safe-exit; RPC nodes cycle via systemctl.
• Safe failover. The watch loop pulls lagging/unhealthy nodes out of DNS and restores them on recovery, and refuses to ever empty a pool.

Status

v1. Built and unit-tested (91 tests, CI on Python 3.11-3.13). Most paths are also proven live against a disposable devnet node and a real Cloudflare zone.

Proven live:

• read path: status, validate, vote-status, inspect
• restart (RPC via systemctl; validator via leader-aware safe-exit)
• in-place upgrade end to end (build agave from source on a builder, distribute, sha256-verify on the target, atomic swap, catch-up) for both RPC and voting-validator nodes
• bootstrap-builder (toolchain + deps on a bare builder)
• provision a voting validator from bare disks (format NVMe, install, render the voting unit, start, catch up, vote)
• DNS driver plus dns status / eject / restore and last-member protection, against a live Cloudflare zone

Unit-tested but not yet run live:

• the autonomous watch loop (probe -> decide -> act); its decision logic is unit-tested and it reuses the now-proven Cloudflare driver
• the Route53 driver (no AWS zone to point at yet)

Not built yet: HTTP transport (MCP is stdio-only today). See PLAN.md (M6).

Install

pipx install solfleet            # not yet published; for now:
pipx install git+https://github.com/sanjeevkkansal/solfleet
pipx install 'solfleet[route53]' # if you use Route53 for DNS

Quick start

cp fleet.example.yaml fleet.yaml     # edit with your nodes
cp policy.example.yaml policy.yaml   # optional; sane defaults if absent
solfleet status                      # probe the fleet
solfleet status --watch              # refreshing live table
solfleet validate                    # structural + live readiness check
solfleet vote-status mn-val-1        # voting health: credits, balance, delinquency, leader
solfleet inspect mn-val-1            # read-only SSH detail for one node
solfleet bootstrap-builder b1        # install build toolchain on a builder; --confirm
solfleet provision rpc-1 4.1.0       # dry-run bring-up plan; --confirm to run
solfleet plan-upgrade mn-val-1 4.1.0 # dry-run upgrade plan
solfleet upgrade mn-val-1 4.1.0      # dry-run; add --confirm to execute
solfleet watch --dry-run             # DNS failover loop, decide-only

MCP (Claude Code):

claude mcp add solfleet -- solfleet-mcp

Example session

Pointed at a small devnet fleet. With no flags, commands are read-only or dry-run.

Fleet health is Solana-aware, not just an HTTP 200:

$ solfleet status
CLUSTER  NODE   ROLE  HEALTH  VERSION     SLOT LAG  VOTE
devnet   rpc-1  rpc   ok      4.1.0-rc.1  0         -
devnet   rpc-2  rpc   ok      4.1.0-rc.1  0         -

An upgrade is dry-run by default. It returns the ordered plan and the gate decision and changes nothing until you pass --confirm:

$ solfleet plan-upgrade rpc-1 4.1.0
{
  "decision": {
    "operation": "upgrade",
    "cluster": "devnet",
    "node": "rpc-1",
    "mode": "dry-run",
    "allowed": true,
    "plan": [
      "on builder 'build-1': build agave 4.1.0 from source",
      "distribute artifact set to rpc-1; checksum-verify each (abort on mismatch)",
      "stop solana-validator, swap, start",
      "swap /usr/local/bin/agave-validator + geyser .so + version marker atomically",
      "wait until healthy + caught up to https://api.devnet.solana.com",
      "verify reported version == 4.1.0; record before/after"
    ],
    "reasons": [
      "dry-run: preflight checks pass; pass confirm=true to execute"
    ]
  },
  "target_version": "4.1.0"
}

Over MCP, the same operations are tools (fleet_status, plan_node_upgrade, upgrade, ...). Claude gets that same plan back and has to pass confirm=true to execute, so an agent cannot mutate a node by accident.

Tools

Read-only: fleet_status, node_detail, version_drift, vote_status, leader_schedule, validate, plan_node_upgrade, dns_pool_status, audit_log.

Gated (dry-run by default; confirm=true to execute): bootstrap_builder_host, provision, restart, upgrade, dns_pool_eject, dns_pool_restore.

Every mutation is dry-run by default, checked against policy.yaml (allowed versions, disk floor, leader-window minimum), and written to a SQLite audit log. The watch loop is the one autonomous mutator; it is bounded by the same audit log and the never-empty-a-pool rule.

Safety model

• Dry-run by default. Mutations return their ordered plan and preflight unless called with confirm=true.
• Policy gate. Per-cluster policy.yaml: allowed version globs, disk floor, and require_leader_window_minutes for validators.
• Checksum-verified distribution. Upgrade artifacts are sha256-checked on the target against the builder before any swap.
• No keys, ever. solfleet does not read, move, or generate identity/vote keypairs. Voting-validator identity failover is out of scope by design (double-signing risk).
• Audit log. Every dry-run and execute is recorded in SQLite.

Development

uv venv && uv pip install -e '.[dev]'
uv run pytest

MCP registry

Published to the MCP Registry.

mcp-name: io.github.sanjeevkkansal/solfleet