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This guide is a reference for Sei node operators and validators. It gives detailed command syntax, configuration parameters, and troubleshooting procedures. For API documentation, see the API Documentation section.

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Command line interface reference

The seid binary has extensive functionality to manage your Sei node. Understanding these commands is essential for effective node operation and troubleshooting.

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Node management commands

These commands help you control and monitor your node:
If you see an error such as panic: recovered: runtime error: integer divide by zero, it means that you cannot start nodes directly from the genesis file. Instead, sync to the block tip with state sync or a snapshot.

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Freeze mode (--freeze-height)

As of v6.6.3, you can put a full node into read-only freeze mode at a specified block height. Use the --freeze-height start flag or the corresponding freeze-height field in app.toml. Freeze mode exists for historical RPC nodes. A node frozen at an upgrade height keeps running the pre-upgrade binary and keeps serving the state that binary produced. It does not shut down at the boundary or execute the upgrade block with code that no longer matches that state. Query RPC remains available, so the node can continue to serve reads, but write and network paths are disabled from startup:
  • Transaction and evidence submission is rejected. The BroadcastTx, BroadcastTxAsync, BroadcastTxSync, BroadcastTxCommit, and BroadcastEvidence RPC calls all return ErrReadOnly (RPC writes are disabled in freeze mode). The EVM endpoint submits transactions through the same path, so eth_sendRawTransaction fails with the same error.
  • Mempool gossip is disabled. The mempool reactor does not start, and the node does not advertise the mempool p2p channel to peers.
  • State sync is disabled. If it is enabled in config.toml, the node logs a notice and falls back to block sync.
Block sync and consensus stop before they execute the configured height and do not advance beyond it. The node must not have reached the freeze height yet. If the application, block store, or state store height is already at or above freeze-height, startup fails with <source> height <n> has already reached freeze height <h>. To build a frozen node, start from a data directory that is below the freeze height. This can be a fresh sync from genesis or a snapshot taken below that height. Then let block sync stop at the boundary.
You can configure the same behavior persistently with the freeze-height field. Its value is the first block height that a full node must not execute. A value of 0 disables freeze mode. The key is a top-level entry in app.toml, in the base configuration next to halt-height, not under any [section] header. The generated default app.toml shows the field in context.
Freeze mode is supported only for full nodes. In validator or seed mode, the node rejects a non-zero freeze-height at startup with an error (freeze height is not supported in <mode> mode). You also cannot combine freeze-height with halt-height, halt-time, or the --grpc-only start flag. The node rejects each combination at startup.

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Frozen RPC router

The frozen-rpc-router binary, available as of v6.6.3, is a companion to freeze mode. It exposes a single HTTP EVM JSON-RPC endpoint that transparently proxies requests to a live node and one or more freeze-height-frozen nodes. It routes each request to the correct backend based on the block height that the request references. With the router, a set of archival nodes can collectively serve historical state through one endpoint. Each node is frozen at a different upgrade height and runs the binary that was live for its interval. Because a freeze height is an exclusive boundary, a node started with --freeze-height 100 serves blocks through height 99. The router therefore sends height 99 to that node. It sends height 100 to the next configured interval, or to the live node when no frozen interval covers it. The router is a standalone binary in the sei-chain repository. It is not part of seid, and make install does not install it. Build it from a source checkout with the build-frozen-rpc-router target, which writes the binary to ./build/frozen-rpc-router:
If you bind the router to a public interface (for example, --listen-address 0.0.0.0:8545), put it behind a firewall or reverse proxy. Protect it as you would a node’s own EVM RPC port. The router has no authentication of its own, so anyone who can reach its listen address can query every backend behind it. The example binds to 127.0.0.1 so that only local clients can connect.
The binary accepts these flags:
  • --listen-address: The address on which the router listens (default 127.0.0.1:8545).
  • --live-node: The HTTP RPC address of the live node (required).
  • --frozen-node: A freeze-height=ip:port pair. Repeat it once for each frozen node. The router accepts bare host:port addresses and http:// or https:// URLs. You may list frozen nodes in any order, but each freeze height must be positive and unique.
  • --max-request-body-bytes: The maximum JSON-RPC request body size in bytes (default 5242880, which is 5 MiB). It must be positive. The router rejects larger requests with HTTP 413.
  • --max-block-reference-depth: The maximum nested block reference depth (default 16). It limits how deeply nested blockNumber object references are parsed when the router resolves a request’s block parameter. It must be positive.
  • --batch-request-limit: The maximum number of calls in a JSON-RPC batch (default 1000). It must be positive. The router rejects a batch over this limit with JSON-RPC error -32600 (batch too large).
  • --write-timeout: The maximum duration to write an HTTP response (default 30s). It must be positive.
  • --shutdown-timeout: The graceful shutdown timeout (default 10s). It must be positive.

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Routing rules

The router inspects and routes only JSON-RPC POST requests. It passes every other request, including WebSocket upgrade requests, straight through to the --live-node address without inspection. That address is the live node’s HTTP RPC endpoint, which does not accept WebSocket upgrades. Clients that need subscriptions should therefore connect directly to the live node’s WebSocket port (8546 by default), not through the router.
  • eth_* and debug_* methods that take an explicit block number or the earliest tag are routed to the interval that contains that height. Examples include eth_getBlockByNumber, eth_getBalance, eth_call, eth_getStorageAt, and debug_traceBlockByNumber. earliest resolves to height 0.
  • eth_getLogs and eth_feeHistory are routed only when their entire block range falls within a single interval. The range is explicit for eth_getLogs. For eth_feeHistory, the router derives it from blockCount and newestBlock (newestBlock - blockCount + 1 through newestBlock, clamped at 0). The router rejects a range that crosses an interval boundary with JSON-RPC error -32000 (block ranges spanning multiple frozen-node intervals are not supported).
  • An eth_getLogs filter that sets fromBlock but omits toBlock is treated as ending at latest. As a result, the router rejects it with the same -32000 error whenever fromBlock is inside a frozen interval. To stay within one interval, set toBlock explicitly. The reverse works: a filter that sets only toBlock is routed to the interval that contains toBlock.
  • Requests with latest-style block tags (latest, pending, safe, finalized) are forwarded to the live node. So are requests that reference a block by hash, methods without a block parameter, and stateful filter methods.
  • Batch requests are split so that each call reaches its correct backend, then reassembled into a single response.
  • Calls whose backend cannot be reached return JSON-RPC error -32001 (upstream request failed).

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Route header

Responses proxied to a single backend carry a Sei-RPC-Route header. The header identifies which backend served the response: frozen:<height> for the frozen node at that freeze height, or live for the live node. A batch split across multiple backends returns mixed. Router-generated errors (oversized or malformed requests, batches over the limit, block ranges that span intervals, and unreachable backends) do not carry the header. Neither does non-POST traffic that passes through to the live node.

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seidb tooling commands

The seidb binary has low-level tools to inspect and maintain a node’s on-disk state.

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Reporting FlatKV EVM migration status

The migrate-evm-status subcommand reads the on-disk FlatKV EVM migration state from a FlatKV data directory and prints a JSON summary. It is intended mainly for integration and operator tooling that polls each validator to check whether the FlatKV EVM migration has completed. The tooling then needs no custom RPC handler and does not have to grep through node logs.
The command opens FlatKV read-only. It first hardlink-clones the latest snapshot and copies the WAL into a temporary directory. You can therefore run it safely against a directory that a live node is still writing to. The emitted JSON contains these fields:
  • version_at: The FlatKV version that was read.
  • migration_version: The on-disk migration version (0 means that the FlatKV EVM migration has not completed yet).
  • migrate_evm_complete: true after the migration version reaches the FlatKV EVM (v1) target.
  • boundary_present: true while the migration is in flight (the in-progress resume cursor is still present).
  • boundary_hex: The hex-encoded migration boundary cursor. It appears only when a boundary is present.
  • version_raw_hex: The hex-encoded raw migration-version bytes. It appears only when a migration version is present.

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Comparing EVM state across backends

The evm-logical-digest subcommand computes a backend-independent digest of the EVM logical state (the account, code, and storage buckets). With this digest, you can compare a memIAVL node and a FlatKV node at the same chain height. A freshly migrated FlatKV node stamps a per-key blockHeight into each value, and this stamp differs from the memIAVL leaf versions. As a result, a raw byte-for-byte digest would diverge even when the underlying EVM state is identical. This command strips the serialization-version and blockHeight header on both sides. It then digests only the height-independent logical payload (storage word, bytecode, or balance+nonce+codehash) and produces a comparable FINAL_DIGEST for each backend.
Two backends match when the FlatKV FINAL_DIGEST equals the memIAVL FINAL_DIGEST. FlatKV also writes an internal migration-version marker row, which a memiavl-only node never owns. The command automatically omits that row from the final comparison. The command accepts these flags:
  • --backend: The backend to read (flatkv or memiavl).
  • --db-dir (-d): For FlatKV, the FlatKV data directory. For memIAVL, the memIAVL root directory that contains current/ and snapshot-*.
  • --height: The target version. FlatKV WAL-replays to it, and memIAVL resolves snapshot-<height>/evm (0 selects the current symlink).
  • --memiavl-normalization: The memIAVL normalization mode. Use semantic or independent for the raw EVM key-value decoder, or translator for the current migration mapping. The default is semantic.
  • --inspect-bucket: Inspect one normalized bucket (account, code, storage, or legacy) instead of printing the global digest.
  • --key-offset (inspect mode): The byte offset into the physical key, applied before --key-prefix or sharding.
  • --key-prefix (inspect mode): A hex prefix, relative to --key-offset, that filters physical keys.
  • --shard-next-bytes (inspect mode): Group matching keys by this many bytes after --key-prefix.
  • --list (inspect mode): List pairs of matching keys and logical values instead of shard bucket_digest values.
  • --list-limit (inspect mode): The maximum number of pairs to print with --list (default 1000). A value <= 0 means unlimited.
  • --details (inspect list mode): Include backend-specific version metadata.
  • --find-hash: An optional 32-byte hex per-entry hash to search for. When two bucket_digest values differ by exactly one entry, their XOR is the hash of that entry. This flag prints every matching entry, so you can locate a single diverging row.

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Autobahn (GigaRouter) config generation

When you use the Autobahn (GigaRouter) networking layer, you can generate the Autobahn JSON config from a set of node directories. Each directory must contain validator_pubkey.txt, node_pubkey.txt, autobahn_address.txt, and evmrpc_url.txt. Unlike the key files, evmrpc_url.txt is not written automatically, so you must create it by hand with the node’s EVM RPC URL. If the file is missing, the command fails with an error. The mempool_size field is no longer part of autobahn.json. Remove it from existing config files.
The --persistent-state-dir flag controls where Autobahn persists its consensus and data write-ahead logs (WALs) across restarts. The default is data/autobahn, so persistence is enabled by default without any operator action. The consensus and data layers write to distinct subdirectories under this shared on-disk root. At config load time, a relative path is resolved against the node’s --home directory, and an absolute path is used as is. An empty value (--persistent-state-dir=) disables persistence entirely, and both the consensus and data layers run in memory only. When set, the flag populates the PersistentStateDir field in the generated config. The command reads these files from each node directory:
  • validator_pubkey.txt: The validator public key in validator:<pubkey> format.
  • node_pubkey.txt: The p2p node public key in node:ed25519:public:<hex> format.
  • autobahn_address.txt: The network address (host:port) that the node advertises to peers.
  • evmrpc_url.txt: The node’s EVM RPC URL. It is written into the validator’s evmrpc field for cross-shard transaction proxying.
The validator_pubkey.txt and node_pubkey.txt files are written automatically next to priv_validator_key.json and node_key.json whenever those keys are saved. They are therefore usually already present in each node’s config directory. The generated autobahn.json file describes the validator set, transaction limits, block interval, view timeout, and dial interval. Gas limits are not part of this file and come from the genesis block parameters instead. To make a node use the file, reference it from config.toml with the autobahn-config-file key.

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Giga mode behavior and per-block limits

A node starts in Giga mode when autobahn-config-file is set in config.toml. In Giga mode, the block production and networking behavior differs significantly from standard Tendermint consensus:
  • The CometBFT TxMempool is not used. Under Giga, the standard mempool and its gossip reactor are disabled entirely. Transactions route through the Autobahn producer-backed mempool instead.
  • Consensus reactor, state sync, and block sync are disabled. In Giga mode, the node skips the consensus and state-sync reactors entirely. The block-sync reactor still runs without a syncer. State sync and block sync are both forced off, regardless of other configuration.
  • Transactions are admitted through the producer mempool. The RPC broadcast endpoints call the producer’s InsertTx or TryInsertTx, not the CometBFT mempool’s CheckTx. BroadcastTx uses InsertTx, which blocks while the mempool is full. The async path calls TryInsertTx in the background and returns immediately. As a result, when the mempool is full, the transaction is silently dropped. The mempool is full error from TryInsertTx never reaches async callers.
  • Sequential EVM nonce ordering is enforced. For EVM transactions, the producer mempool admits transactions strictly in nonce order per sender. A transaction whose nonce does not match the next expected nonce is rejected with a bad nonce error. Because admission is sequential, the mempool can track pending nonces (EvmNextPendingNonce) as callers submit them.
The producer enforces these limits on each Autobahn block payload as it fills a block:
  • Maximum transactions per block: The lower of the configured max_txs_per_block and the built-in maximum of 2,000 (see the transaction payload caps below).
  • Maximum total transaction bytes per block: A fixed per-block byte cap. A single transaction larger than this cap is rejected with a transaction too large error.
  • Wanted gas per block (MaxGasWantedPerBlock): Derived from the genesis MaxGasWanted block param. A transaction whose GasWanted exceeds this per-block limit is rejected as too large.
  • Estimated gas per block (MaxGasEstimatedPerBlock): Derived from the genesis MaxGas block param. A transaction whose (normalized) estimated gas exceeds this per-block limit is rejected as too large.
The producer seals the current block and starts a new one as soon as the next transaction would exceed a limit. This rule covers the transaction-count, byte, wanted-gas, and estimated-gas limits.

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Autobahn committee and network message limits

Beyond the per-block payload limits, Giga mode enforces structural limits on the validator committee and on incoming consensus network messages:
  • Maximum validators per committee: The Autobahn committee has a hard limit of 100 validators (MaxValidators). Committee creation rejects any validator set over this limit with a too many validators error. It does not silently truncate the set.
  • Bounded consensus network messages. Autobahn consensus protobuf messages carry declared size and count constraints. These constraints are checked against the raw wire bytes before the message is decoded. Payloads that violate them are rejected during decoding, before any allocation. This protects nodes from oversized or malformed inputs that could otherwise decode into much larger in-memory structures.
The enforced message constraints include:
  • Per-field maximum sizes on fixed-width fields such as hashes, signatures, and public keys.
  • Maximum repeated-field counts on validator-related lists. Signature and quorum-certificate lists are capped at 100 entries, which matches the 100-validator committee cap.
  • Transaction payload caps: A block payload may carry at most 2,000 transactions. The combined transaction byte budget is exactly 2,048,000 bytes (2,000 × 1,024), and it may be split arbitrarily across the transactions in the payload. These are the built-in maxima that the per-block limits above refer to.
Any message whose fields exceed these limits is rejected at decode time, so an oversized network payload never reaches the consensus logic.
Giga replaces the CometBFT mempool, so Giga does not support the unsafe_flush_mempool RPC endpoint. The endpoint returns unsafe_flush_mempool is not supported with autobahn mempool.

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Key management

Proper key management is critical for security. Use these commands to manage your keys:

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Transaction commands

These commands let you interact with Sei:

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Configuration parameters

Understanding configuration parameters is essential to optimize your node’s performance and security.

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App.toml parameters

The app.toml file controls application-specific settings:

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Config.toml parameters

The config.toml file controls the core consensus engine and networking:
The [consensus] section may still parse a stateless-leader-election field, but the field is deprecated and ignored. Stateless (seed-based) leader election is always enabled, regardless of the value, so the field has no effect. It remains only for config-parsing compatibility, and you can safely omit it.
Out-of-process ABCI support was removed. The full node now runs only with Tendermint in-process. External standalone ABCI processes (socket or gRPC) are no longer supported. As a result:
  • The seid start flags --address and --transport are deprecated and ignored.
  • The Tendermint node flags --proxy-app and --abci are deprecated and ignored.
  • The proxy-app and abci fields in config.toml are deprecated and ignored. Newly generated config.toml files no longer include them. If you upgrade a node and these lines are in your config.toml, delete them.

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Network parameters

Understanding network parameters helps you operate your node effectively.

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Chain parameters

These parameters define the network’s behavior:
These values reflect the current on-chain parameters. For the source of truth, query them directly with seid query staking params and seid query slashing params. Per-validator settings (for example, commission rate and commission max change rate) are configured per validator and are not chain-level parameters.

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File locations

Understanding the purpose and location of important files helps with maintenance and troubleshooting:
New nodes place the Tendermint consensus databases (blockstore, state, tx_index, evidence, peerstore, and cs.wal) under data/tendermint/. Existing nodes with the legacy flat layout keep these databases directly under data/ (for example, data/blockstore.db and data/cs.wal/). These nodes continue to use the legacy paths automatically. The legacy location takes precedence when it is present, so no migration is required.
This reference guide gives essential technical information for operating Sei nodes and validators. For API documentation and other detailed specifications, see the relevant sections of this documentation.