Release Notes

Features

• Rework block root hashing to a fixed 16-slot merkle tree #26918 by @derektriley
• (0.77) SystemContracts input size limit #26426 #26652 by @akdev
• improve BN comms coverage #26428 by @petreze
• #26310 - encapsulate virtual pipeline
• enable all wraps and cutover HapiTests in XTS #26268 by @petreze
• EIP-3860 add support for init code limit validation #26308 by @stoyanov-st
• #26258 - reuse virtual map constructor
• #26256 - add hashAsync() to VirtualHasher
• Take weights into account when checking if node has fallen behind #26218 by @abies
• Support for Ethereum Pectra Release #25309 by @gkozyryatskyy
• Remove unchecked submit #26162 by @Grigorov-Georgi
• #26164 - Extract VirtualMapSyncConfig from ReconnectConfig
• #26115 - skip WRAPS proving key download when artifacts already present #26144 by @ibankov
• #26089 - remove rate limiter on teacher reconnect
• #25318 - cleanup reconnect metrics
• add enhanced observability for block streaming #25861 by @Grigorov-Georgi
• 25739 - improve workgroup error handling
• switch block stream and TSS configs defaults for 0.77 #25928 by @petreze
• #26023 - file exporter for new metrics framework
• 25950 - move hashChunkHeight from VirtualMapConfig to MerkleDbConfig
• 25821: New MerkleDb LongList implementation based on memory segments mapped from a specified file #25903 by @artemananiev
• 25754 - simplify reconnect tasks termination
• Change default number of max other parents to 4 #25669 by @abies
• switch dispatcher and queries to simple fees #25888 by @aderevets
• Support Free Simple Fees #25704 by @joshmarinacci

Bug Fixes

• Block royalty payments even when receiver is exempt from in-scope fallback fee #27188 by @joshmarinacci
• ContractValidationRule order fix #27127 by @joshmarinacci
• Modify the language around folding beneficiary mappings into the root builder at staking finalization #27211 by @joshmarinacci
• don't advance beneficiary stake metadata for rewards redirected from a deleted account #27181 by @joshmarinacci
• deleting a rewardable stakee no longer freezes its indirect stakers #27180 by @joshmarinacci
• isolate scheduled-transaction failures in the expiry scan #27137 by @joshmarinacci
• replay processed inner fees when a later inner exceeds the record limit #27136 by @joshmarinacci
• guard exchange-rate fee conversion against non-positive centEquiv and overflow #27168 by @joshmarinacci
• require a node-controlled payer for NODE-category transactions #27174 by @joshmarinacci
• enforce contract trace-data limit for batch and scheduled calls #27134 by @joshmarinacci
• Cherry-pick stale createdContractIds, atomic batch rollback fixes #27162 by @joshmarinacci
• reject duplicate non-repeated fields when extracting query payment bytes #27133 by @joshmarinacci
• reject token transfers in query payments #27157 by @joshmarinacci
• validate migration-root-hash vote bodies and harden vote tallying and storage ordering #27132 by @joshmarinacci
• fold beneficiary mappings into the root builder at staking finalization #27131 by @joshmarinacci
• handle two bugs in reclaiming throttle capacity #27130 by @joshmarinacci
• make prng and exchange rate contracts stateless #27129 by @joshmarinacci
• optimise pre handle workflow #27128 by @joshmarinacci
• Cherry-Pick (77): strip DAB nodeId suffix in toSpecProperties() #27094 by @mhess-swl
• (0.77) unblock BN Comms, BN regression and cutover XTS panels #27010 by @petreze
• 77 Cherry-pick: Install WRAPS proving keys atomically and gate prover readiness on a verified key- #27008 #27009 by @mhess-swl
• 26969: (0.77) v0.77.0-rc.7: ISS reported despite 100% node agreement on state hash #26970 by @artemananiev
• cherry-pick: Throttle utilization metrics report zero #26697 by @derektriley
• Cherry-pick: libsodium rollback #26731 #26765 by @gkozyryatskyy
• (0.77) stabilize tests by increasing the staking period and give more room for wrap proof construction #26515 #26681 by @petreze
• (0.77) Refresh stale TSS controllers after reconnect #26625 #26627 by @tinker-michaelj
• (0.77) Ensure deterministic vote replay around reconnect #26564 #26567 by @tinker-michaelj
• update solo version to v0.79.1 #26707 by @andrewb1269
• (0.77) XTS fixes for BN Comms and JRS #26455 #26671 by @gkozyryatskyy, @akdev
• (0.77) Ops duration throttling for insufficient gas tx #26438 #26669 by @gkozyryatskyy, @akdev
• (0.77) Clip trace data #26434 #26651 by @tinker-michaelj, @akdev
• (0.77) Fix jumpstart migration PBJ parsing #26422 #26650 by @akdev
• (0.77) Non-deterministic gossip CA certificate validation #26424 #26649 by @akdev
• (0.77) Refactor access list encoding #26423 #26647 by @akdev
• 26655: (0.77) Increase AsyncInputStream max message size limit #26657 by @artemananiev
• improve how the connection worker loop handles pending requests #26586 by @timfn-hg
• (0.77) Resilient vote replay #26526 #26544 by @tinker-michaelj
• Clear jumpstart hash queue #26364 by @derektriley
• fail hard on an unparseable simple fee schedule at node (re)initialization #26269 by @ruslanvelkov-beep
• Use nGen for setting last self event instead of sequence number #26376 by @poulok
• Close initial state in test framework #26374 by @netopyr
• fix airdrop create and claim #26363 by @aderevets
• Optimisation to Ethereum transaction validation #26227 by @stoyanov-st
• fix airdrop create and claim #26254 by @aderevets
• clear stale createdContractIds and suppress STATE_CHANGES sidecars for REVERTED_SUCCESS batch transactions #26332 by @mhess-swl
• Fix consensus optimization bug #26319 by @poulok
• Use shard/realm from parsed state key in EntityIdUniquenessValidator #26288 by @Grigorov-Georgi
• Revert "chore: Remove nGen #26169" #26309 by @poulok
• Refactor System Contract handling #26284 by @stoyanov-st
• StateProof adjustment to leaf to be proven and single-child SiblingNode #26225 by @derektriley
• Fix wiring type mismatch silent error #26255 by @poulok
• Fix consensus restart tests #26246 by @poulok
• Disable Code Delegation Atomic Batch tests #26251 by @stoyanov-st
• throttle metrics #26231 by @petreze
• fail fast on block-stream hashing failure instead of deadlocking #26239 by @AlexKehayov
• validate full shard.realm.num in Authorizer #26213 by @AlexKehayov
• proper bucket throttle for ethereum txn #26220 by @petreze
• Fix for speedometer stddev unit tests #26234 by @abies
• Throttle IndexOutOfBound possibility #26212 by @petreze
• reject NODE-category transactions whose payer is not node-controlled #26160 by @ruslanvelkov-beep
• pass the configured mirror-node version to solo in the XTS mirror-node regression panel #26219 by @ruslanvelkov-beep
• make translator entity watermarks per-type #26194 by @aderevets
• Optimise Token Uri system contract call #26210 by @stoyanov-st
• Refactor HSCS account screening flow #26191 by @stoyanov-st
• refine delegated NFT allowance handling and validation #26181 by @petreze
• 26067: Intermittent Blockstream Diff Testing for Previewnet Node failure #26068 by @thenswan
• correct bonneville SDIV/SMOD signed arithmetic #26161 by @aderevets
• do not embed TSS private keys in startup network export under PROD #26085 by @AlexKehayov
• require explicit opt-in to allow uncheckedSubmit #26126 by @AlexKehayov
• Flush platform status before replay #26118 by @poulok
• Fix for flaky ReconnectTest #26042 by @netopyr
• disable the pause detector #26102 by @joshmarinacci
• main branch
• Key material security posture #25946 by @tinker-michaelj
• Include all effective payers for fractional fee assessed records #25717 by @Neeharika-Sompalli
• 25937: MerkleDb state folder name should be fixed #25992 by @artemananiev
• flush blocks on catastrophic failure instead of stopping on ISS #25848 by @AlexKehayov
• tss.wrapsProvingKeyPath default conflicts with WRAPS artifacts extraction directory #26019 by @derektriley
• cherry-pick (main): signSchedule(address,bytes) signatureMap size limit #25977 by @gkozyryatskyy
• #25986 - OpenMetricsWriter to use ROOT locale
• treat empty-KeyList token keys as absent (disabled) instead of permissionless #25823 by @ibankov
• Revert "feat: Support Free Simple Fees #25704" #25932 by @joshmarinacci
• Feature/token association refactoring #25619 by @gkozyryatskyy
• resolve relative paths before WRAPS artifacts path consistency check #25907 by @ibankov

Other Changes

Build System

• bump pandaswhocode/initialize-github-job to v1.2.2 #26396 by @nathanklick
• Upgrade jackson to 2.22.1 #26365 by @poulok
• Revert build(deps): bump gradle-wrapper from 9.5.1 to 9.6.0 #26000 #26348 by @dependabot[bot], @andrewb1269
• bump slackapi/slack-github-action from 2.0.0 to 3.0.5 #20460 by @dependabot[bot]
• bump net.java.dev.jna:jna from 5.18.1 to 5.19.0 in /hiero-dependency-versions #25835 by @dependabot[bot]
• bump com.github.docker-java:docker-java-api from 3.7.0 to 3.7.1 in /hiero-dependency-versions #25837 by @dependabot[bot]
• bump gradle-wrapper from 9.5.1 to 9.6.0 #26000 by @dependabot[bot]
• bump bouncycastle from 1.83 to 1.84 in /hiero-dependency-versions #25836 by @dependabot[bot]
• remove accidentally added flaky test configuration #26243 by @jjohannes
• update 'org.hiero.gradle.build' to 0.7.11 #26193 by @jjohannes
• activate Gradle project isolation for faster build startup #25397 by @jjohannes
• bump io.netty:netty-bom from 4.2.13.Final to 4.2.15.Final in /hiero-dependency-versions #25839 by @dependabot[bot]
• bump com.github.ben-manes.caffeine:caffeine from 3.2.0 to 3.2.4 in /hiero-dependency-versions #25838 by @dependabot[bot]
• bump step-security/publish-unit-test-result-action from 2.22.0 to 2.23.0 #25843 by @dependabot[bot]
• bump step-security/auto-unapprove from 1.0.2 to 1.0.3 #25844 by @dependabot[bot]

Chores

• Atomic batch EVM tx restriction #27185 by @joshmarinacci
• streamMode=BOTH block size circuit breaker #27171 by @joshmarinacci
• Mainnet and Testnet jumpstart and disable TSS #27033 by @derektriley
• Update BN Version to v0.41.0-rc1 and MN to 0.162.0-rc1 #26948 by @derektriley
• Truncate wrapped-record-hashes.pb file and enable writing of hashes #26747 #26834 by @derektriley
• (0.77) fix BN suite on main #26459 #26680 by @petreze
• (0.77) Reduce block buffer size from 150 to 30 blocks #26425 #26648 by @akdev
• Update wrapsVoteJitterPerRank and pipelineOperationTimeout #26563 by @derektriley
• Pin container versions #26421 by @netopyr
• Stabilize ToxiProxy communication #26370 by @netopyr
• Move simple methods out of PlatformCoordinator #26393 by @netopyr
• Avoid repeating preview block stream overwrite #26394 by @tinker-michaelj
• Add thread dump functionality to Otter #26369 by @netopyr
• Cleanup tests and testFixtures in platform-core #26335 by @netopyr
• Add a main class for running the Hashgraph GUI from PCES files #26361 by @poulok
• Remove model lifecycle methods from PlatformCoordinator #26366 by @netopyr
• do not upload the proving key into log zips #26334 by @petreze
• remove duplicate codeowner team #26331 by @andrewb1269
• Improve KB freshness checker #26298 by @netopyr
• Revert "chore: Remove config.txt file #26249" #26333 by @Grigorov-Georgi, @ibankov
• migrate to hiero-cryptography Libsodium #26202 by @anthony-swirldslabs
• update codeowners for gradle files #26272 by @andrewb1269
• Fix Yahcli Subprocess test failure artifact uploading #26294 by @derektriley
• Decrease merkledb initial size for container otter tests #26279 by @poulok
• Remove config.txt file #26249 by @Grigorov-Georgi
• removing HashCompareHandshake dead code #26245 by @Jeffrey-morgan34
• Final cleanup of state module #26248 by @netopyr
• Add additional metrics for block streaming #26203 by @timfn-hg
• Merge consensus-state-management into consensus-state #26238 by @netopyr
• Remove nGen #26169 by @poulok
• Prevent possible NPE in ConsensusSubmitMessageFeeCalculator #26221 by @Grigorov-Georgi
• KB freshness #26217 by @netopyr
• bump mirror-node version to 0.158.0 for the XTS Mirror Node Regression panel #26230 by @ruslanvelkov-beep
• Update cGen to use seq num instead of nGen #26168 by @poulok
• Update consensus to use event seq num instead of ngen #26157 by @poulok
• Added benchmark for Speedometer and small improvement to speed #26146 by @abies
• Remove countOfCryptographicKeys method #26208 by @Grigorov-Georgi
• Revert healthLogThreshold to 5s #26184 by @Grigorov-Georgi
• make restartWrapsSigning consistent #26185 by @petreze
• State Management Module reviewer follow up #26190 by @poulok
• Revert "chore: replace LazySodium with Hiero Libsodium #26122" #26172 by @anthony-swirldslabs
• create state management module #26134 by @netopyr
• fix solo adhoc e2e cutover script #26080 by @petreze
• Combine handle and pre handle flushing #26137 by @poulok
• #26132- improve config usage in merkledb and vmap
• Update references to swirlds-docker #26149 by @rbarker-dev
• minor hardening fixes for block node communication #26138 by @timfn-hg
• replace LazySodium with Hiero Libsodium #26122 by @anthony-swirldslabs
• bump up the Block Node version in test infra #26124 by @petreze
• Migrate transaction handling module #26112 by @netopyr
• Update sync sorting to use sequence number instead of nGen #26110 by @poulok
• Revert feat: switch block stream and TSS configs defaults for 0.77 #26116 by @derektriley
• Keep HAPI Test (Restart) happy w/ non-recursive proofs #26051 by @tinker-michaelj
• Cleanup of ISS error log suppress #26079 by @netopyr
• fixate configs in bn suite #26101 by @petreze
• move state test fixtures into consensus-state #26097 by @netopyr
• Update BN XTS Regression Panel w MN 0.157.0+ support #26098 by @Nana-EC
• remove XTS BLOCKS override tests #26061 by @petreze
• bump PandasWhoCode/initialize-github-job to v1.1.2 in BN XTS regression panel #26064 by @Nana-EC
• Introduce ISS detection module #25988 by @netopyr
• cleanup node integration fee tests #26012 by @ruslanvelkov-beep
• Update references to jrs-legacy #26058 by @rbarker-dev
• Clean misc and cross service fee tests 25859 #25998 by @Grigorov-Georgi
• Bump helidon version to 4.5.0 #26021 by @derektriley
• Update PBJ version and add tests #25990 by @Neeharika-Sompalli
• return plaftform.wiriting.healthLogThreshold=3s to Token, Restart and MiscRecords hapi tests #26007 by @Grigorov-Georgi
• Move Platform state machine to consensus-utilities #26003 by @netopyr
• Move ScratchPad to consensus-utility #25981 by @netopyr
• Always throttle CryptoGetAccountBalance #25952 by @derektriley
• Sig map override in dispatchComputeFees #25968 by @derektriley
• Minor Version Roll to 0.77.0-SNAPSHOT
• increase TC-03 Publisher Handshake Protocol coverage #25766 by @AlexKehayov
• Remove dead code for connection handling #25941 by @abies
• Move branch detection into event intake module #25906 by @netopyr
• remove application callbacks #25879 by @netopyr

Continuous Integration

• broken TCK & JS SDK XTS tests #27154 by @joshmarinacci
• bump bouncycastle to 1.85 #26963 by @joshmarinacci
• upgrade io.netty:netty-codec-http to 4.2.17.Final #26911 #26952 by @anthony-swirldslabs, @joshmarinacci
• bump TCK and JS SDK versions #26882 by @joshmarinacci
• bump TCK and JS SDK versions
• pin redis version #26624 #26629 by @andrewb1269
• (0.77) bump TCK version to v0.12.3 for the SDK TCK Regression panel #26552 #26561 by @Fantomasa, @petreze
• fix determinism cache key bug #26491 #26492 by @andrewb1269
• Improve install #26395 by @joshmarinacci
• install deterministic-zip through checksum-verified action #26400 by @nathanklick
• use correct github.event.repository.fork #26276 by @joshmarinacci
• replace context values with env vars #26351 by @joshmarinacci
• remove xts cancelled messages from operations channel #26306 by @andrewb1269
• fix Slack message failures #26304 by @andrewb1269
• update the checkout steps #26265 by @andrewb1269
• run TCK regression against the PR build and current mirror node #26267 by @ibankov
• use snyk actions #26275 by @joshmarinacci
• make mirror-node and rpc-relay mandatory #26280 by @joshmarinacci
• set explicit version number #26260 by @joshmarinacci
• JSON-RPC Relay Test #26244 by @joshmarinacci
• delete unneeded files from pectra release #26237 by @joshmarinacci
• pin and validate grpcurl #26195 by @joshmarinacci
• use evn vars instead of direct shell injection for input vars #26200 by @joshmarinacci
• Fix broken grpcurl #26233 by @joshmarinacci
• prevent SIGPIPE from crashing XTS candidate tag lookup #26226 by @andrewb1269
• pass the BN version in XTS correctly #26229 by @andrewb1269
• update how XTS exits when no tag found #26189 by @andrewb1269
• add run attempt to slack templates #26045 by @joshmarinacci
• pin and validate binary versions #26173 by @joshmarinacci
• make bn regression mandatory in XTS #26159 by @andrewb1269
• add xts-tag-exists to the slack-cancelled-summary template #26044 by @joshmarinacci
• install semver only through initialize-github-job #26151 by @joshmarinacci
• use 'showVersion' instead of 'properties' Gradle task #26155 by @jjohannes
• consolidate manual harden runner + checkout templates + install gomplate #26048 by @joshmarinacci
• update gradle cache cleanup to default behavior #26140 by @andrewb1269
• update how release note commits are processed #26128 by @andrewb1269
• update setup-gradle action input parameter #26136 by @andrewb1269
• add commitish build handling to determinism checks #25525 by @andrewb1269
• Update 855 to provide empty strings and verify outputs #26086 by @rbarker-dev
• update solo version #26070 by @joshmarinacci
• broken slack report #26076 by @joshmarinacci
• Update access token for JRS panel #26072 by @rbarker-dev
• Fix json-rpc-relay checkout tag step #26055 by @rbarker-dev
• Add json-rpc-relay-version to hiero-consensus-node .citr-env #26050 by @rbarker-dev
• consolidate Slack payload generation code. #25647 by @joshmarinacci
• add workflow unit tests for templates #25680 by @joshmarinacci
• wire WRAPS XTS tests to a runner-mounted proving-key OCI image #25846 by @ibankov
• Update XTS panels to use locked values #25962 by @rbarker-dev
• Update names in workflow files #25958 by @rbarker-dev
• Integrate the workflow renames #25954 by @rbarker-dev
• add permissions to PR formatting check workflow #25933 by @andrewb1269
• bump mirror node version #25911 by @joshmarinacci
• move solo version check to separate workflow #25927 by @andrewb1269
• fix solo version processing check #25925 by @andrewb1269
• use setup-gomplate #25909 by @joshmarinacci
• Add 855-extract-citr-vars workflow #25908 by @rbarker-dev
• refactor error handling #25610 by @joshmarinacci

Documentation Updates

• warn that standalone TransactionExecutors perform no contract-key verification #26273 by @ruslanvelkov-beep
• Minor fixes in knowledge base #26302 by @netopyr
• Document consensus optimization in KB #26271 by @poulok
• Update consensus-layer wiring diagram #26147 by @poulok
• Add init judge explanation #26119 by @poulok
• fix readme links and update status badges #26127 by @andrewb1269
• Improve consensus-layer wiring diagram #26100 by @poulok
• Hashgraph Invariants #25966 by @netopyr
• Add CLAUDE.md for consensus layer KB #26052 by @poulok
• 25447: Clarify run configurations in swirlds-benchmarks #25450 by @thenswan
• Update knowledge base with multiple other parents change #25929 by @netopyr
• Update docs for new workflow names #25960 by @rbarker-dev
• cleanup knowledge base format #25926 by @netopyr
• Dedup knowledge base #25900 by @poulok
• Adjust the protobuf comments for BlockItem to reflect correct field item rules. #25762 by @jsync-swirlds

Refactoring

• Extract state initialization #26429 by @poulok
• Move test to hashgraph module #26391 by @poulok
• Make Consensus Layer construction eager #26291 by @poulok
• Introduce ConsensusLayerFactory #26261 by @poulok
• Remove consensus-state dependency from PCES module #26222 by @netopyr
• delete legacy fee builders, relocate to FeeConstants #26108 by @aderevets
• remove legacy fee calculator engine and SPI #26106 by @aderevets
• remove transitional createSimpleFeeSchedule flag #26082 by @aderevets
• delete simpleFeesEnabled config field #26065 by @aderevets
• stop reading simpleFeesEnabled in query and airdrop #26029 by @aderevets
• clean up schedule fee tests #25858 #25996 by @ruslanvelkov-beep
• remove legacy file fee suites #25857 #25980 by @ruslanvelkov-beep
• 25854 - clean up consensus fee tests #25965 by @ruslanvelkov-beep
• Move event stream classes out of swirlds-platform-core #25794 by @poulok
• drop dead legacy fee code from handlers #25976 by @aderevets
• drop simpleFeesEnabled from high-volume checks #25974 by @aderevets
• remove legacy fee SPI surface #25917 by @aderevets
• remove legacy fee methods from token and crypto handlers #25913 by @aderevets
• Clean up crypto fee tests 25856 #25963 by @Grigorov-Georgi
• Move two test fixture classes out of swirlds-platform-core #25910 by @poulok
• remove legacy fee methods from network admin handlers #25916 by @aderevets
• remove legacy fee methods from address book handlers #25915 by @aderevets
• remove legacy fee methods from consensus handlers #25914 by @aderevets
• remove legacy fee methods from smart contract handlers #25891 by @aderevets
• remove legacy fee methods from schedule handlers #25890 by @aderevets
• remove legacy fee methods from file handlers #25889 by @aderevets
• Move MerkleSerializationException #25901 by @poulok

Tests

• (Release 0.77) fix stale catch-up gate in Solo block-stream cutover #26668 by @ibankov
• Cherry-pick: Replace CryptoGetAccountBalance with CryptoGetInfo in yahcli #26814 by @mhess-swl
• Fix partition experiments #26367 by @netopyr
• Stabilize Otter Communication #26336 by @netopyr
• Stabilize ToxiProxy handling for chaos tests #26297 by @netopyr
• Extend HSCS test coverage #26283 by @stoyanov-st
• Fix flaky ReconnetTest #26313 by @netopyr
• Small improvements of chaos test #26296 by @netopyr
• sync solo 076-to-077 cutover script to 075 pattern + add adhoc test scenario #25995 by @ibankov
• Add Solo adhoc block node outage test backpressure #25689 by @derektriley
• drop --upgrade-version and log real source -> target versions #26186 by @ruslanvelkov-beep
• remove legacy dual-mode fee assertion helpers #26109 by @aderevets
• drop simpleFeesEnabled branches from simple-fee suites #26028 by @aderevets
• drop legacy token fee suites, mirror cases to TSSF #25984 by @aderevets
• e2e cutover — rc.6 labels, CN self-download of WRAPS proving key, drop nginx helper #25923 by @ibankov
• adjusted baselines for CITR SDPT #25956 #25957 by @alex-kuzmin-hg