• An Intel or AMD x86 processor with two or more cores, at 1.6GHz or faster (2GHz or faster for a stake pool or relay)
• Or, for MacOS, an Apple Silicon processor
• 24GB of RAM when running with the InMemory backend, 8GB when running with the OnDisk backend (pending confirmation)
• 300GB of free storage (350GB recommended for future growth)

• Linux 64-bit (Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, 22.04 LTS, 24.04 LTS, 26.04 LTS; Mint 20, 21, 21.1, 21.2, 21.3, 22, 22.1, 22.2; Debian 11, 12, 13)
• Windows 64-bit (10, 11)
• MacOS 10.15, 11 (Big Sur), 12 (Monterey), 13 (Ventura), 14 (Sonoma), 15 (Sequoia), 26 (Tahoe)

• GHC 9.6
• Cabal 3.8/3.12

• Pre-release configuration files
• Docker Images: cardano-node, cardano-tracer, cardano-submit-api

• 🟢 - signed / agreed / supported
• 🟥 - not agreed / unsupported

• The node reads its configuration through cardano-config. Two dialects are understood: the legacy flat format (read by both the node's own parser and cardano-config, with any divergence reported as a non-fatal warning) and the new cardano-config envelope, resolved by cardano-config alone. New subcommands cardano-node config migrate, cardano-node config schema and cardano-node config resolve (the latter also reports divergences between the two parsers for a flat config). (#6677)
• The shipped network configurations were refreshed for the 11.2 series and moved to the envelope format. Release tarballs ship the enveloped config. (#6677)
• mainnet-config.yaml drops LastKnownBlockVersion-* and is no longer readable by a pre-11.2 node. (#6677)
• The gRPC server can listen over HTTP/2 instead of only a unix socket: --grpc-listen-address/--grpc-listen-port (config RpcListenAddress/RpcListenPort), and TLS via --grpc-tls-certificate/--grpc-tls-private-key/--grpc-tls-chain-certificate. Conflicting or incomplete combinations are rejected at parse time. (#6668)
• Standard handles now always use UTF-8, independent of the system code page or locale. On Windows, stdout traces were written in the legacy code page, so JSON lines were not valid UTF-8, and characters outside that code page (e.g. in a non-ASCII host name or TraceOptionNodeName) crashed the node at startup. The same crash happened on Linux under a non-UTF-8 locale such as LC_ALL=C. (#6711)
• Tracing changes visible to log consumers, now that the consensus tracing instances are used instead of the node's own copy:
  • mempool rejections always carry errdetails;
  • the detailed "tx" field of mempool traces is now the CBOR in hex;
  • new namespaces Mempool.CapacityChanged, Snapshot.ConfiguredSnapshotPolicy, Snapshot.ImplausibleSnapshotPolicy, RPC.SubmitService.ReadMempool.Span and RPC.SubmitService.WatchMempool.Span;
  • the Peras certificate inclusion and vote forging tracers are wired, under Peras.Cert.Inclusion and Peras.Vote.Forging;
  • the ledger predicate failure kind for an already-registered delegation account is now DelegAccountAlreadyRegistered.
    (#6677)
• slotsMissed_int no longer counts the slots that elapse while block forging is disabled; the first leadership check after forging is re-enabled starts a new run of slots. Genuine gaps while forging is enabled are still counted. (#6698)
• Docker: the node entrypoint's relative-path rewriting now handles enveloped configs. (#6677)
• Docker: CARDANO_CONFIG_JSON_MERGE documents must use the enveloped shape (see nix/docker/README.md). (#6677)
• NixOS service: new configFormat option ("legacy", the default, or "enveloped") to choose the generated config dialect. (#6677)
• NixOS service: new lsmExportPath option, for the LSM snapshot export consumed by Mithril signing. (#6677)
• NixOS service: new immutableDatabasePath and volatileDatabasePath options. (#6677)
• NixOS service: blsKeys is replaced by a single blsKey. (#6677)
• The Mithril signer bundled in the x86_64-linux tarball was bumped to the v2642.0 release (signer 1.2.5). (#6677)

• Standard handles now always use UTF-8 (on Windows also the console code page), independent of the system code page or locale. (#6731)
• trace-forward 2.5.1 fixes a small memory leak in the acceptor. (#6740)

• Fixed cardano-submit-api rejecting Dijkstra era transactions with a TxCmdTxReadError decoding error. Transactions from every Shelley-based era, including Dijkstra, are now decoded and submitted to the node. (#6725)

• New --enable-tracer option starts cardano-tracer and has all testnet nodes forward their traces to it, with --prometheus-listen-address/--prometheus-listen-port to bind its Prometheus server. (#6710, #6723)
• When the network is ready, cardano-testnet cardano writes a machine-readable manifest.json (sockets, ports, key paths, genesis files, wallet addresses) into the output directory, with a JSON Schema in cardano-testnet/schemas/manifest.schema.json. (#6693)
• New --enable-grpc-http to serve each node's gRPC endpoint over HTTP (h2c), with --grpc-listen-address and --grpc-listen-port-base; endpoints are printed in the startup summary. (#6685)
• Testnet node configurations are written in the cardano-config format, with genesis hashes refreshed on every start. Breaking for library users: createConfigJson, createConfigJsonNoHash, getByronGenesisHash, getShelleyGenesisHash, GenesisHashesPolicy and SubmitApiConf's configPath were removed. (#6677)
• nix run .#cardano-testnet is self-contained. (#6684)

• Added Dijkstra sub-transaction commands: build-raw, sign and txid. Top-level transaction build-raw accepts signed sub-transactions through repeatable --signed-sub-tx-file options. Sub-transaction builders support guard credentials and required top-level guards.
• Added Plutus V4 reference-script options to Dijkstra transaction and sub-transaction builders. Sub-transactions support native scripts and Plutus V4; Plutus V1–V3 script files are rejected.
• Added --direct-deposit STAKE_ADDRESS+LOVELACE to Dijkstra transaction builders and sub-transaction build-raw, with duplicate-recipient validation, automatic fee balancing, and deposit details in transaction views.
• Added BLS voting-key registration through stake-pool registration-certificate --bls-signing-key-file, mandatory from Dijkstra onwards. Removed node issue-pop-BLS and node key-hash-BLS; node key-gen-BLS remains available.
• Added Leios protocol-parameter update options and exposed --spec-dijkstra in testnet genesis help.
• Removed --script-valid and --script-invalid from Dijkstra transaction builders; Conway retains both options.
• debug check-node-configuration accepts legacy flat and new cardano-config configurations. Genesis hashes are required and genesis files are fully decoded and validated. Experimental hard forks require a Dijkstra genesis file and hash. The success message now goes to stderr.
• Added repeatable --tx-in-collateral to compatible transaction signed-transaction.
• Fixed relay IPv4 address rendering, redeemer indexing, and transaction build-estimate balancing with no outputs or multi-asset input values.
• Improved era and script handling: CARDANO_ERA accepts Dijkstra and case-insensitive names; address and policy-ID commands accept Plutus V4 and native guard scripts; unsupported reference-script languages produce an error instead of being silently dropped.
• Updated to API 11.11 and its validated, insertion-ordered transaction guards.

• Added experimental Dijkstra sub-transaction construction, signing, serialisation and embedding. Unified transaction body content across top-level transactions and sub-transactions, with Dijkstra fields for guards, direct deposits and account-balance intervals.
• Added native-script guards and native/Plutus V4 guard witnesses, including fee estimation and balancing. Guard collections now use insertion-ordered TxGuards; callers should use mkTxGuards and handle validation errors.
• Added BLS stake-pool voting-key registration and Leios protocol-parameter updates.
• Added Plutus V4 reference and auxiliary scripts for Dijkstra. Unsupported script languages now fail explicitly during decoding or transaction construction.
• readNodeConfig and initialLedgerState use cardano-config, accepting both configuration formats and requiring genesis hashes. readNodeConfig loads genesis files and returns configuration warnings and structured errors. NodeConfig no longer has a FromJSON instance.
• Fixed fee estimation for voting transactions, pool registrations and key guards; redeemer pointer indexing; multi-asset and output-free balancing; non-canonical inline-datum decoding; and Dijkstra ledger-event processing.
• Extended createCompatibleTx with Plutus spending scripts and corrected missing script witnesses and overwritten proposal reference inputs.
• Library migration changes include removal of deprecated ProtocolParameters and several era case combinators, extraction of key types and serialisation into cardano-keys, and changes to HasTextEnvelope instances and getKesPeriod.

• New ReadMempool method on the UTxO RPC submit service. It returns the transactions currently in the node's mempool. PR #1348
  • New WatchMempool method on the UTxO RPC submit service. It streams transactions as they enter the node's mempool, optionally filtered by a transaction predicate. PR
    #1350
  • SearchUtxos now rejects a predicate that names more than 20,000 address terms with INVALID_ARGUMENT; repeated addresses count towards the limit. ReadUtxos already had the same limit on its
    keys. PR #1358

• Removed NodeToClientV_16 – NodeToClientV_22.
• Fixed an inbound governor stall where a stale MuxFinished for a superseded connection could block it indefinitely. It is now ignored and traced as TrStaleMuxFinished.
• Fixed a race where a responder could start before its connection was registered.
• Reworked churn and hot-demotion scoring. Decisions carry their scores in traces, and there are new peerSelection.churn.* gauges.
• Fairer warm→hot promotion of recently demoted peers.
• Local root changes (addresses, advertise flag) apply immediately instead of waiting for DNS re-resolution.
• network-mux: messages are chunk-encoded in the protocol's own thread up to a soft buffer limit, reducing memory retention.
• network-mux: the message length moved from TraceChannelSendStart to TraceChannelSendEnd.
• Tx-submission duration counters no longer truncate sub-millisecond waits.

• Node-to-client versions below NodeToClientV_23 were pruned, along with GetProposedPParamsUpdates, GetStakeDistribution and GetPoolDistr (CBOR tags 4, 5 and 21 are now rejected).
• The default (Mithril) snapshot policy now takes a snapshot every 40 * k slots with no offset, instead of every 432,000 slots with an offset of 388,800: one snapshot a day on mainnet, one in five landing on an epoch boundary.
• Snapshots are written by a dedicated background thread, decoupled from LedgerDB garbage collection.
• The resolved snapshot policy is traced at startup (ConfiguredSnapshotPolicy).
• An ImplausibleSnapshotPolicy warning is emitted when the write delay or rate limit is at least as long as the interval, which mainly matters on networks with short slots.
• The hard fork combinator mempool re-encodes a transaction from its origin era into the current era, instead of translating it through every intermediate era.
• Tracing a Dijkstra block that failed validation no longer crashes the tracing thread.
• db-truncater gains --leios to truncate the LeiosDB along with the ImmutableDB.
• Groundwork for Leios (endorser-block mempool measure, LeiosDB), disabled by default.
• Groundwork for Peras (epoch context, voting committee, vote/cert tracers), disabled by default.

• IPv4 relay addresses are encoded in network byte order (the fix already shipped in 11.1.3).
• New protocol parameter for future eras: CIP-50 maximum pledge leverage (no effect before it is set).
• New protocol parameter for future eras: CIP-23 minimum pool margin (no effect before it is set).
• From protocol version 12 (Dijkstra): CertifiedVRF, Text and tuple decoders accept indefinite-length encodings.
• From protocol version 12 (Dijkstra): LeiosCert rejects an oversized signers bitfield.
• Dijkstra-era progress:
  • CIP-164 Leios committee selection with BLS-keyed stake pool snapshots;
  • new Leios protocol parameters;
  • Peras protocol parameters (certificate validation disabled);
  • sub-transactions with their own execution-unit/fee accounting;
  • a per-transaction is_valid flag in the block body.
• cardano-ledger-api adds queryNonMyopicMemberRewards.
• cardano-ledger-api exposes a pool's BLS key.
• API changes across eras:
  • predicate failure constructors renamed (e.g. StakeKeyAlreadyRegisteredDELEG → DelegAccountAlreadyRegistered);
  • era type parameter on PoolCert/StakePoolParams;
  • transaction-level-aware Plutus LedgerTxInfo;
  • more ToJSON/FromJSON instances.

• Plutus V4 is now ready to use (requires protocol version 12). This release does not include new primitives - V4 currently has the same set of primitives as V1-V3 on mainnet. New primitives will be enabled at a later release.
• The CIP-0168 builtins keepPolicies/dropPolicies get a cost model (8 parameters).
• keepPolicies/dropPolicies fail on a Value with more than 8191 policies.
• Value caches per-currency negative-amount counts, making keepPolicies/dropPolicies logarithmic in the size of the Value; the costing of insertCoin, unionValue, scaleValue and unValueData was updated accordingly.
• UPLC now supports using case on Data. This only supports Data objects of the form Constr i args. The tag i selects the branch. Matching on any other Datab object fails. Here, Constris a constructor ofData, not to be confused with the constrAST node. Requires Plutus Core 1.2.0 (if using Plinth, add{-# OPTIONS_GHC -fplugin-opt Plinth.Plugin:target-version=1.2.0 #-}` ).

• Config change: TraceOptionForwarder.connQueueSize and TraceOptionForwarder.disconnQueueSize have been replaced by a single TraceOptionForwarder.queueSize. To migrate without behaviour change, pick the higher of both previous values for it.
• Expose Prometheus label sets as # TYPE ... gauge for full conformance with text exposition format (fixes #6706).
• Safeguard against some Windows systems not properly setting up their terminals for UTF-8 output (fixes #6711).
• The slotsMissed_int metric no longer counts the slots that elapse while block forging is disabled (fixes #6698).
• Addressed stale BlockFetch.Decision trace namespaces, so the actually emitted PeersFetch and PeerStarvedUs messages can now be configured (fixes #6667).
• Fixed a small memory leak when using trace forwarding.
• Tracing changes visible to log consumers:
  • Mempool rejections always carry errdetails
  • The detailed "tx" field of mempool traces is now the CBOR in hex
  • New namespaces Mempool.CapacityChanged,
    Snapshot.ConfiguredSnapshotPolicy, Snapshot.ImplausibleSnapshotPolicy,
    RPC.SubmitService.ReadMempool.Span and
    RPC.SubmitService.WatchMempool.Span
  • Peras certificate inclusion and vote forging traces under Peras.Cert.Inclusion and Peras.Vote.Forging
  • The ledger predicate failure kind for an already-registered delegation account is now DelegAccountAlreadyRegistered

Package changelogs