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Discovery tells an application which markets and solvers may be available. It does not reserve inventory, bind a price, or implement settlement. Applications may combine curated registries, pinned solver cards, and their own eligibility or ranking policy.

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Solver Cards

A solver card is one JSON document per solver and Arkade network. It advertises the markets the solver serves and, when needed, how to request live terms.
The two markets are the two shapes. The first settles both sides through Arkade and advertises a price feed, so it needs no rendezvous. The second names quote_corridor, which puts one endpoint on Lightning and makes the signed discovery_pubkey, transports, and sig mandatory — without them a client has no identity to seal a request to and no relay to send it on. A card whose endpoints both use arkade may advertise a price feed without an RFQ rendezvous. A corridor card must include signed rendezvous information because the client needs a solver identity and transport before requesting a quote. For a market whose endpoints both use arkade, the card advises the pricing formula — which spot feed to read and what spread a fill charges. It remains advisory: it guarantees neither inventory nor that a fill executes.

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Registries

A registry is a Git repository of solver cards plus validation and publishing automation. Solvers submit cards through pull requests. The registry validates them and generates one market index per network. Registry review is a listing gate, not a settlement trust anchor. A merged card can become stale, and an index cannot move funds.

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Application Curation

No registry is mandatory. An application can:
  • follow one or more public or private registries;
  • pin a solver card directly;
  • filter by route, size, issuer policy, jurisdiction, or reputation;
  • re-rank solvers using fill history or other product-owned data;
  • remove solvers without changing the settlement protocol.
When combining registries, isolate failures, validate every index, remove byte-identical duplicates, and keep source attribution. A solver omitted from one registry remains reachable through another registry or a pinned card.

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Ranking and Best Execution

Generated indexes may sort markets by indicative fee_bps, but that is only a static proxy. Price freshness, routing capacity, inventory, reliability, and application policy also affect execution quality. Discovery enables competition. It does not guarantee best execution.

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Discovery and Publication

Discovery and request publication are separate choices:
  • A client can discover several solvers and address one directly.
  • A client can publish a request so subscribed solvers return sealed bids.
  • A client can pin one solver and never use a public registry.
Publishing describes how one request reaches potential bidders. Open markets describe who may participate under the application’s policy.

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Trust Model

Treat cards, indexes, advertisements, and price feeds as advisory. For corridor RFQ, verify the signed rendezvous and every signed quote. On every route, derive the settlement contract locally before value moves.

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Sources