The Ember project develops experimental, open-source software for an open, decentralized inference network. The network is open to independent operators contributing inference capacity. Submit signed execution evidence and receive valueless test Spark when sampled replay accepts the work and settlement finalizes.
Four kinds of participants, one ledger. Ember connects eligible inference hardware through signed work, sampled audits, and test-credit accounting.
The consumer-facing entry point. Accepts inference requests, reserves test credit, routes work, and returns results.
Run models on their own hardware through engine adapters, execute requests, and commit signed evidence for every token.
Replay sampled work and compare signed evidence. A numerical rejection requires confirmation by a different assigned auditor before slashing; sampling does not detect every deviation.
A CometBFT chain that holds accounts, Spark balances, stake, receipts, verdicts and settlement — the single source of truth.
Inference supply today is concentrated and opaque. Ember exists to make it open and verifiable.
Supply is locked in a few clouds. Ember lets any operator join permissionlessly — stake, register, serve — on hardware from a data-center GPU to a small edge board.
Remote execution is hard to verify. Signed evidence and sampled replay support probabilistic fraud detection before settlement; they do not prove every computation correct.
Open contributors need shared accounting. The ledger records Spark balances, holds, and policy penalties. Testnet Spark is valueless test credit; consensus and audit trust assumptions still apply.
One engine never fits all hardware. A unified Engine SPI with graded evidence lets PyTorch, vLLM, llama.cpp and future engines serve side by side.
Start with the signed v0.1.0 release. Linux amd64 or arm64, Python 3.12 with venv/ensurepip, OpenSSL with Ed25519, tar, sha256sum and curl are required. The installer needs no root access.
Download your architecture (replace amd64 with arm64 on ARM64), then verify. Authenticate the signing-key fingerprint through your trusted release channel: d3b07085781f2d4d75de6caefa6e1dc9cd4eadeec10326b2b0c20eb03254eabb (SHA-256 of DER SubjectPublicKeyInfo). This release key is endorsed by the Ember root key cc3522f6bbfa1ca057cd5beddfefb740a0b6ef86d81d4c30307f613bc21bd918: verify the endorsement chain with release/trust-statement.txt in the repository (see docs/SIGNING.md, Trust anchor).
EMBER_VERSION=0.1.0 EMBER_RELEASE="https://github.com/emberinfer/Ember/releases/download/v$EMBER_VERSION" for file in "ember-$EMBER_VERSION-linux-amd64.tar.gz" SHA256SUMS SHA256SUMS.sig release-signing.pub; do curl -fLO "$EMBER_RELEASE/$file" done openssl pkey -pubin -in release-signing.pub -outform DER | sha256sum openssl pkeyutl -verify -pubin -inkey release-signing.pub \ -rawin -in SHA256SUMS -sigfile SHA256SUMS.sig sha256sum --ignore-missing -c SHA256SUMS tar -xzf "ember-$EMBER_VERSION-linux-amd64.tar.gz" cd "ember-$EMBER_VERSION-linux-amd64" ./install-release.sh --role node --prefix "$HOME/ember" --python python3.12
Download the pinned model revision using the Quickstart model command. Then configure and serve. A public network is forthcoming: access endpoints and participation details will be announced separately, and this site publishes no live network configuration.
Provide compute, receive valueless test Spark per settled request. Enrollment stakes the minimum and registers your identity automatically. The Quickstart carries the current configure, fund and serve commands for a live network.
Stop serving and automatic restart. Keep your identity. Wait for registration expiry, unbond all stake, wait for the release height, then claim. Use the complete exit commands and confirm zero stake and no pending unbondings.
For a disposable smoke check, select a short registration lease before first join as documented; the default lease is 200000 finalized blocks.
Consumers call a gateway with the network parameters and credentials issued for that network. See the working API example in the README.
Validator admission follows the Validator Guide.
Full instructions: Quickstart · Validator Guide · Operations
Ember restricts neither the model nor the inference framework. Three mechanisms keep that freedom verifiable.
Release and network facts for this project. This site publishes no live network configuration.
| Status | Software v0.1.0 released — public network access forthcoming; endpoints will be announced separately |
|---|---|
| Ledger | CometBFT (application chain emberchain) |
| Reference models | Qwen2.5-1.5B-Instruct and SmolLM2-360M-Instruct profiles ship in the repository (weights by the operator, hash-pinned) |
| Spark | Accounting unit of the network. Testnet Spark is valueless test credit — no price, no exchange, no returns. |
| Seed / RPC / Gateway | Not published on this site |
| Faucet | Test credit distribution will be announced with the public network |
| Settlement weights | Base 80 executor / 15 auditor / 5 consumer rebate; scarcity multipliers up to 2x redistribute the existing fee. |
| Join | Node software is available now from the signed release; network enrollment opens with the public network — see the Quickstart |
Experimental software, valueless test credit, participation risks and local rules.
What Ember is, why it exists, how to use it.
Install from the signed release and join.
The adapter contract and evidence grades.
How signed profile records are published and verified. Each record names its chain.
How the public network is discovered and joined.
Threat model summary and reporting.
The release trust chain and how to verify it.