Celestia

This guide covers connecting your Evolve chain to Celestia for production data availability.

Prerequisites

• Completed an Evolve quickstart tutorial
• Familiarity with running a Celestia light node

Running a Celestia Light Node

Before starting your Evolve chain, you need a Celestia light node running and synced.

Follow the Celestia light node documentation to install, initialize, and start a light node for your target network (Arabica, Mocha, or Mainnet).

Configuring Evolve for Celestia

Required Configuration

The following flags are required to connect to Celestia:

Flag	Description
--evnode.da.address	Celestia node RPC endpoint
--evnode.da.auth_token	JWT authentication token
--evnode.da.header_namespace	Namespace for block headers
--evnode.da.data_namespace	Namespace for transaction data

Get DA Block Height

Query the current DA height to set as your starting point:

DA_BLOCK_HEIGHT=$(celestia header network-head | jq -r '.result.header.height')
echo "Your DA_BLOCK_HEIGHT is $DA_BLOCK_HEIGHT"

Get Authentication Token

Generate a write token for your light node:

Arabica:

AUTH_TOKEN=$(celestia light auth write --p2p.network arabica)

Mocha:

AUTH_TOKEN=$(celestia light auth write --p2p.network mocha)

Mainnet:

AUTH_TOKEN=$(celestia light auth write)

Set Namespaces

Choose unique namespaces for your chain's headers and data:

DA_HEADER_NAMESPACE="my_chain_headers"
DA_DATA_NAMESPACE="my_chain_data"

The namespace values are automatically encoded by ev-node for Celestia compatibility.

You can use the same namespace for both headers and data, or separate them for optimized syncing (light clients can sync headers only).

Set DA Address

Default Celestia light node port is 26658. Note: Connection to a celestia-node DA requires a websocket connection:

DA_ADDRESS=ws://localhost:26658

Running Your Chain

Start your chain with Celestia configuration:

evnode start \
    --evnode.node.aggregator \
    --evnode.da.auth_token $AUTH_TOKEN \
    --evnode.da.header_namespace $DA_HEADER_NAMESPACE \
    --evnode.da.data_namespace $DA_DATA_NAMESPACE \
    --evnode.da.address $DA_ADDRESS

For Cosmos SDK chains:

appd start \
    --evnode.node.aggregator \
    --evnode.da.auth_token $AUTH_TOKEN \
    --evnode.da.header_namespace $DA_HEADER_NAMESPACE \
    --evnode.da.data_namespace $DA_DATA_NAMESPACE \
    --evnode.da.address $DA_ADDRESS

Viewing Your Chain Data

Once running, you can view your chain's data on Celestia block explorers:

• Celenium (Arabica)
• Celenium (Mocha)
• Celenium (Mainnet)

Search by your namespace or account address to see submitted blobs.

Configuration Options

Gas Price

By default, ev-node uses automatic gas price detection. Keep the default unless you have an operational reason to override it:

--evnode.da.gas_price 0.01

Higher gas prices result in faster inclusion during congestion. Omit this flag to use the automatic default.

Block Time

Set the expected DA block time (affects retry timing):

--evnode.da.block_time 6s

Celestia's block time is approximately 6 seconds.

Multiple Signing Addresses

For high-throughput chains, use multiple signing addresses to avoid nonce conflicts:

--evnode.da.signing_addresses celestia1abc...,celestia1def...,celestia1ghi...

All addresses must be funded and loaded in the Celestia node's keyring.

Funding Your Account

Testnet (Mocha/Arabica)

Get testnet TIA from faucets:

• Mocha Faucet
• Arabica Faucet

Mainnet

Purchase TIA and transfer to your Celestia light node address.

Check your address:

celestia state account-address

Troubleshooting

Out of Funds

If you see Code: 19 errors, your account is out of TIA:

1. Fund your account
2. Increase gas price to unstick pending transactions
3. Restart your chain

See Troubleshooting Guide for details.

Connection Refused

Verify your Celestia node is running:

curl http://localhost:26658/header/sync_state

Token Expired

Regenerate your auth token:

celestia light auth write --p2p.network <network>

See Also

• Local DA Guide - Development setup
• Troubleshooting - Common issues
• Configuration Reference - All DA options