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Covenant Genesis & Transition

This guide demonstrates how to orchestrate a 1:1 auth-bound Toccata covenant using HardKAS CLI.

Prerequisites: You must have a compiled SilverScript record (compile_record.json) and a funded account (alice).

1. Covenant Genesis​

The Genesis step binds a new UTXO to a freshly derived covenant_id.

hardkas silver covenant genesis compile_record.json \
  --from alice \
  --amount 5000 \
  --compute-budget 50000 \
  --fee 20000000 \
  --wait

What HardKAS does:

  1. Loads your compiled SilverScript artifact.
  2. Derives the P2SH Kaspa address for the contract's initial state.
  3. Finds a spendable UTXO from alice larger than the requested amount + fee.
  4. Constructs a v1 Kaspa transaction.
  5. Explicitly assigns a new covenant_id to the output (Output Covenant Binding).
  6. Submits the transaction to the network and waits for confirmation.

2. State Transition​

To advance the covenant's state, you must spend the Genesis UTXO and create a Successor UTXO, satisfying the SilverScript policy constraints.

hardkas silver covenant transition genesis_record.json \
  --policy "increment" \
  --constructor-args args.json

What HardKAS does:

  1. Resolves the current state of the covenant from the genesis_record.json.
  2. Compiles the expected successor state using silverc.
  3. Constructs a v1 transaction that spends the current covenant UTXO and creates the successor UTXO.
  4. Automatically copies the exact same covenant_id from the input to the successor output via bindings.
  5. Signs the transaction (using standard or PSKT coordination if required) and submits it.

PSKT Covenant Compatibility​

HardKAS pskt workflows (delegating to upstream rusty-kaspa v2.1.0) are fully compatible with Toccata covenants.

When you export a covenant transition plan to a PSKT, the PSKT binary preserves:

  • The v1 transaction serialization format.
  • The explicit compute_budget required for the script validation.
  • All Output Covenant Bindings and covenant_id metadata.

This allows you to construct a complex SilverScript state transition on an online machine, and safely transfer it to an air-gapped signer for authorization.