Running a Realm

A realm is your island. You are its operator — the harbormaster, the keeper of the beacon, the one who decides what crosses the border and what does not. Running a realm means tending to its infrastructure, its customs policy, and its connections to the wider archipelago.

Your realm’s identity is an Ed25519 keypair generated on first initialization. This keypair signs every event, every item provenance record, and every federation handshake. Guard it as you would a lighthouse lamp — without it, your island goes dark.

Configuration lives in archipelago.toml at your realm’s root. Here you define your harbor name, berth capacity, customs policy, narrator register, and federation peers. Changes take effect on reload — no restart required. The beacon stays lit while you work.