API-Hunter
API-Hunter
API Hunter - Product Specification and Developer Guide
- API Hunter is Netrum’s developer-facing gateway that converts raw node primitives into intuitive, secure, and production-grade APIs. It is the essential bridge between the protocol-level node layer and the rich ecosystem of Web2, Web3 and voice-first applications that will run on Netrum. API Hunter removes the operational burden of running nodes, normalizes cross-chain and cross-client semantics, and embeds Netrum’s provenance and attestation model into every response so builders obtain reliable, auditable data and actions with minimal integration effort.
1. Why This Matters
• Foundation to product mapping: Node software secures consensus, verifies transactions and synchronizes state. API Hunter translates those low-level capabilities into stable interfaces that developers can rely on.
• Reduce friction: Developers do not need to operate node fleets, manage upgrades or reconcile subtle RPC differences across EVM and non-EVM clients. API Hunter manages those concerns.
• Enable new UX: Voice-first controls, attested query responses and deterministic execution traces make it possible to build higher-order experiences such as voice wallets, auditable merchant flows and AI-driven automation without reimplementing infrastructure.
• Auditability and trust: Every API response can carry a verifiable attestation or anchor reference to ensure outcomes can be audited, replayed and trusted by third parties.
2. Product positioning and scope
- API Hunter is a modular gateway and developer platform that provides:
• Canonical JSON-RPC facade and REST alternatives for common tasks.
• High-level specialized endpoints for common developer needs, e.g., rich transaction simulation, canonical event extraction, balance histories, and automated Merkle proof generation.
• Voice and intent-native endpoints: voice transcript to canonical intent, intent validation, and safe execution.
• Attestation services: optional verifier-signed proofs attached to responses.
• Edge caching, request deduplication and adaptive routing to the node mesh for resiliency and performance.
• Developer tooling: SDKs, CLI, sandbox consoles and observability dashboards.
- API Hunter is not a monolithic RPC provider. It is an orchestration layer that federates best-available backends, enforces policy, and produces auditable outputs.
3. Architecture overview
- Logical components
- 1. API Edge Gateway
• Authentication, rate limiting, request validation and front-line caching.
• Accepts JSON-RPC, REST and WebSocket requests.
2. Intent Layer
• Converts voice or natural language into a canonical intent schema used by higher-level APIs.
• Performs entity extraction, parameter validation and preflight authorization.
3. Orchestrator and Planner
• Decides routing: edge cache, read-only nodes, verifier nodes, merchant-managed nodes or third-party RPC providers.
• Selects attestation policy based on request headers or merchant profile.
4. Backend Federation
• A pool that includes Netrum edge nodes, permissionless Light/Full nodes, merchant nodes, and trusted third-party RPC providers.
• Handles read replica selection, write submission and fallback strategies.
5. Verifier Subsystem
• For attested responses, a verifier committee re-executes required checks and issues signed attestations.
6. Response Composer
• Merges outputs, attaches metadata, and optionally appends attestation roots and anchor references.
7. Audit Store and Anchoring
• Persists trace IDs, signed receipts and on-chain anchors for high-assurance flows.
8. Developer Portal and SDKs
• API docs, API keys, usage dashboards, and code samples.
- Data and control flows
• Read request: Client → Edge → Orchestrator → Best backend → Response Composer → Client.
• Attested read: Orchestrator triggers verifier re-execution → Verifier signs attestation → Attach attestation to response → Anchor if requested.
• Write/submit: Client → Edge → Orchestrator → Submission path (with optional TSS approval or human-in-loop) → Mempool/relayer → Inclusion → Post-inclusion attestation.
4. Design principles
- 1. Consistency
• Provide canonical semantics for the most common methods across supported chains.
2. Determinism Where It Matters
• For audit-sensitive flows, ensure reproducible outputs remain reproducible across verifier re-executions.
3. Configurable Assurance
• Allow clients to choose latency versus verifiability trade-offs.
4. Developer Ergonomics
• Idiomatic SDKs, simple error model and best-practice retries/backoff.
5. Security-First
• Default to human confirmation or multiple factors for value-moving actions.
6. Transparent Economics
• Clear, measurable pricing and metering for premium services such as attested responses, priority RPC and AI inference.
Evolution Path - from nodes to apps
- Each stage intentionally reduces systemic risk while expanding the surface for developer creativity and commercial adoption.
1. Node Layer (Now)
- The Node Layer is the system’s foundational substrate. It implements peer-to-peer synchronization, transaction verification, consensus and block finality. Its responsibilities include:
• Ensuring consistent state across participants so every actor sees the same ledger.
• Validating transactions and enforcing protocol rules at the execution layer.
• Providing the low-level primitives used by wallets, relayers and verifier nodes.
• Producing signed, auditable artifacts that downstream systems can reference for proof and reconciliation.
- A robust node layer turns abstract protocol promises into real, repeatable guarantees. It is the difference between a speculative design and an operational network where wallets hold real value, transactions are final, and auditors can reproduce events.
2. Node Layer (Now)
- API Hunter sits directly above the node layer and is the strategic interface for builders. It converts raw node primitives into stable, developer-friendly APIs so teams can focus on product logic rather than node ops. Key attributes:
• Canonical abstraction: normalizes differences between client implementations and chains into a consistent API surface.
• Developer ergonomics: provides JSON-RPC passthrough, REST facades, high-level endpoints (simulation, attested receipts, balance histories), SDKs and CLI tools.
• Assurance controls: exposes policy-driven assurance levels so clients can choose latency versus cryptographic verifiability.
• Attestation-first responses: optionally attach verifier-signed proofs and anchor references to critical reads and writes.
- API Hunter removes operational friction, shrinks time to market for dApps and voice-first experiences, and embeds Netrum’s auditability and provenance model into every integration.
3. Apps & Governance (Future)
- Once the infrastructure and developer gateway are stable, Netrum moves into user facing products: wallets, explorers, governance dashboards, commerce modules and social primitives. These applications will:
• Empower users to exercise true ownership of digital assets and identity.
• Provide governance interfaces that let stakeholders propose, debate and ratify protocol changes with on-chain traceability.
• Enable enterprises to integrate Netrum services into existing back office systems with compliance and audit bundles included.
- This staged progression creates healthy separation of concerns: infrastructure first, developer enablement second, consumer and enterprise adoption third. That sequencing reduces systemic risk while maximizing long-term utility.
Why developers should join the Testnet early
- Joining Netrum in the Testnet stage is not merely an opportunity to experiment. It is an opportunity to shape standards, secure early economic upside, and develop domain expertise that becomes a sustained competitive advantage. The concrete benefits are:
1. Learn the Protocol at the Metal
- Early contributors gain intimate knowledge of protocol flows before abstractions appear. That understanding delivers practical advantages:
• Better debugging and optimization because you know what happens under the API surface.
• Ability to design resilient integrations that anticipate reorgs, mempool dynamics and attestation timing.
• A head start on building components that later become production hardened libraries or commercial products.
2. Influence API Design and Standards
- The Testnet is the design laboratory for API Hunter and adjacent standards. Active participants provide feedback that becomes code and policy:
• Shape canonical endpoints, parameter semantics and assurance tiers to match real developer needs.
• Help define developer ergonomics such as SDK patterns, idempotency semantics and error models.
• Contribute to attestation formats and manifest schemas so auditability fits your enterprise requirements.
- Your feedback is not merely heard, it is codified into interfaces that every integrator will later consume.
3. Earn Early Economic and Governance Upside
- Testnet activity is rewarded in NPT and confers priority for future conversion, allocation and governance roles:
• Eligibility for task-based incentives, node rewards and leaderboards that translate into NPT allocations.
• Higher priority on swap and conversion queues at mainnet launch.
• Reputation and recorded contribution history that factors into future governance roles and grant eligibility.
- This is a practical pathway from contributor to stakeholder. The combination of technical contribution and recorded provenance positions early participants as recognized builders and decision makers.
Next Steps
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