Jael API Reference

This document details all the tasks you may wish to send Jael, as well as the gifts you'll receive in response.

You may also wish to reference the Data Types document for details of the types referenced here, and the Examples document for practical examples of using these tasks.

Tasks

%dawn

Boot from keys.

[%dawn dawn-event]

This task is called once per ship during the vane initialization phase immediately following the beginning of the adult stage. This task is %passed to Jael by Dill, as Dill is the first vane to be loaded for technical reasons, though we consider Jael to be the true "first" vane. This task is only used for ships that will join the Ames network - fake ships (i.e. made with ./urbit -F zod) use the %fake task instead.

%dawn is used to perform a sequence of initialization tasks related to saving information about Azimuth and the Ames network and booting other vanes for the first time. Upon receipt of a %dawn task, Jael will:

• record the Ethereum block the public key is registered to,

• record the URL of the Ethereum node used,

• save the signature of the parent planet (if the ship is a moon),

• load the initial public and private keys for the ship,

• set the DNS suffix(es) used by the network (currently just urbit.org),

• save the public keys of all galaxies,

• set Jael to subscribe to %azimuth-tracker,

• %slip a %init task to Ames, Clay, Gall, Dill, and Eyre, and %give an %init gift to Arvo, which then informs Unix that the initialization process has concluded.

This task takes a $dawn-event as its argument.

You would not use this task manually.

Returns

Jael %gives an %init gift to Unix. This occurs after the Dill %slip init.

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%fake

Boot fake ship.

[%fake =ship]

This task is used instead of %dawn when creating a fake ship via the -F flag when calling the Urbit binary. It performs a subset of the actions that %dawn performs, modified to accommodate the fake ship.

%fake endows the ship with a private key and a public key deterministically derived from the ship's @p. It sets fak.own.pki to %.y, which is the bit that determines whether or not a ship is fake. Other parts of the Jael state, such as the sponsorship chain and galaxy public keys are left at their bunted values.

The ship field specifies the @p of the fake ship being created.

You would not use this task manually.

Returns

Jael %gives a %init gift to Unix.

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%listen

Set Ethereum source.

[%listen whos=(set ship) =source]

Sets the source that the public keys for a set of ships should be obtained from. This can either be a Gall app that communicates with an Ethereum node such as %azimuth-tracker, as in the case of galaxies, stars, and planets, or a ship, as in the case of moons.

whos is the set of ships whose key data source is to be monitored. The $source is either a ship or the name of a Gall app to use as a source. A %listen task with empty whos will set the default source. When the source is a ship, Jael will obtain public keys for ships in (set ship) from the given ship. By default, the source for a moon will be the planet that spawned that moon.

You are unlikely to use this task manually.

Returns

Jael will not return any gifts in response to a %listen task.

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%meet

This task is deprecated and does not perform any actions.

[%meet =ship =life =pass]

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%moon

Register moon keys or otherwise administer a moon.

[%moon =ship =udiff:point]

This is what is sent to Jael by %hood behind the scenes when you run |moon, |moon-breach or |moon-cycle-keys. The ship field is the moon's @p. The $udiff:point will contain the bunt of an $id:block (since moons aren't registered in Azimuth) and one of the udiff actions depending on what you want to do.

Returns

Jael does not return any gifts in response to a %moon task.

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%nuke

Cancel subscription to public or private key updates.

[%nuke whos=(set ship)]

If you've subscribed to public or private key updates from Jael with a %private-keys or %public-keys task, you can unsubscribe and stop receiving updates with a %nuke task. The (set ship) is the set of ships which you want to stop tracking. Jael organises subscriptions based on ducts, and will determine which subscription to cancel implicitly based on the duct the %nuke task came from. This means a %nuke task only works from the same thread or agent and on the same path as the original subscription request.

To cancel a subscription to the ship's private keys you must leave whos empty like [%nuke ~].

Returns

Jael does not return a gift in response to a %nuke task.

Examples

See the %public-keys and %nuke section of the Examples document for an example of using %nuke to cancel a %public-keys subscription. See the thread in the %private-keys example for cancelling a %private-keys subscription.

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%private-keys

Subscribe to private key updates.

[%private-keys ~]

Subscribe to be notified of private key updates for the local ship. The subscription will continue until Jael receives a %nuke task to cancel it.

Returns

Jael responds to a %private-keys task with a %private-keys gift.

Jael will immediately respond with a %private-keys gift. Then, whenever the ship's private keys are changed, it'll send a new and updated %private-keys gift.

Example

See the %private-keys section of the Examples document for a practical example.

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%public-keys

Subscribe to public key (and related) updates from Jael.

[%public-keys ships=(set ship)]

An agent or thread can subscribe to be notified of public key updates, sponsorship changes and continuity breaches for the set of ships specified in the ships field. The subscription will continue until Jael receives a %nuke task to cancel it.

Returns

Jael responds to a %public-keys task with %public-keys gift.

Upon subscription, Jael will immeditely respond with a %public-keys gift containing a %full public-keys-result with the public key for each life up until the current one for each ship specified in the original task. After than, Jael will send a %public-keys gift with either a %diff or %breach $public-keys-result each time a change occurs for any of the ships to which you're subscribed.

Example

See the %public-keys and %nuke section of the Examples document for a practical example.

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%rekey

Update private keys.

[%rekey =life =ring]

This is what is sent to Jael by %hood when you run |rekey, as you must after setting new Azimuth keys or running |cycle-moon-keys on a moon's parent. It will update your life (key revision number) and private keys. The life field is the new life (typically an increment of the current life) and the ring is a private key @.

Returns

Jael does not return any gift in response to a %rekey task.

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%resend

Resend private keys.

[%resend ~]

This task asks Jael to resend our private keys to subscribers who have subscribed with a %private-keys task.

Returns

Jael doesn't return any gifts in response to a %rekey task, but %private-keys subscribers will receive a %private-keys gift.

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%ruin

Pretend breach.

[%ruin ships=(set ship)]

This simulates a breach locally for the given set of ships. Jael will blast out a %breach %public-keys gift to all subscribers. Ames will delete all message state for the ships in question in response to the %breach gift.

WARNING

This will break communications with the given ships, and is not reversible until they actually breach. Use with extreme caution.

Note it's better to use the %snub Ames task if you want to block packets from ships.

Returns

Jael doesn't return any gifts in response to a %ruin task.

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%turf

View domains.

[%turf ~]

The domains returned by a %turf task are used as the base for individual galaxy domain names (e.g. from urbit.org you get zod.urbit.org, bus.urbit.org, etc). Jael gets these from Azimuth, then Ames gets them from Jael and passes them to the runtime, which will perform the DNS lookups and give Ames back the galaxy IP addresses. A %turf task takes no additional arguments. You're unlikely to use this manually - if you want the current turfs you'd likely want to do a turf scry instead.

Returns

Jael will respond to a %turf task with a %turf gift.

Example

See the %turf section of the Examples document for a practical example.

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%step

Reset web login code.

[%step ~]

Jael maintains a step value that represents the web login code revision number, and uses it to derive the code itself. It begins at 0 and is incremented each time the code is changed. When Jael updates the web login code, it sends Eyre a %code-changed task:eyre so that Eyre can throw away all of its current cookies and sessions. A %step task takes no additional argument.

Returns

Jael does not return a gift in response to a %step task.

Example

See the %step section of the Examples document for a practical example.

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Gifts

%done

Ames message (n)ack.

[%done error=(unit error:ames)]

This is given in response to a %plea from Ames. You would not use this from userspace.

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%boon

Ames response.

[%boon payload=*]

This is given in response to a request from Ames. You would not use this from userspace.

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%private-keys

Private keys.

[%private-keys =life vein=(map life ring)]

This is given to those who have subscribed with a %private-keys task whenever our keys change.

The life is our current key revision number, and the vein contains a map from current and previous lifes to private keys as rings.

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%public-keys

Ethereum changes.

[%public-keys =public-keys-result]

Public key information, diffs, and breach notifications. This is given to those who have subscribed with a %public-keys task.

See the $public-keys-result entry in the data types reference for details of the data this gift contains.

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%turf

Domains.

[%turf turf=(list turf)]

This is given in response to a %turf task, and contains the list of domains used for galaxies (the urbit.org part in zod.urbit.org).

A $turf is a (list @t) of domain components, TLD-first. For example, urbit.org would be ~['org' 'urbit'].

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