Source of truth
The authority order every technical statement follows, and how to resolve two sources that disagree.
Protocol behavior Verified 2026-08-31
Describes the Atomicals protocol itself at the pinned reference revision. It does not promise that any product exposes it.
- Page ID
-
develop/source-of-truth - Normative authority
- Atomicals reference implementation
- Networks
- mainnet
- Documentation version
- 2026.08
- Audience
- developer, operator, integrator
- Owner
- bitcoin-universe-docs
- Sources
-
- Atomicals protocol guide
at
unversioned - Atomicals ElectrumX
at
v1.5.2.0
- Atomicals protocol guide
at
The order
Section titled “The order”- Executed source code, conformance tests, generated route inventories, schemas, deployment manifests, and runtime contracts, at an exact revision.
- Final or Living Atomicals Improvement Proposals applicable to the feature.
- The official Atomicals reference implementation or released validator, at an exact commit or release.
- Official Atomicals protocol and CLI documentation.
- Universe implementation documentation, at an exact revision.
- Third-party integrations, always identified as third-party and non-normative.
Explanatory prose is never independent consensus, including this documentation.
What that means in practice
Section titled “What that means in practice”| Question | Answered by |
|---|---|
| What does this transaction do? | The validator revision you run, at that height |
| Is this rule active? | The activation condition for your network |
| What does this API return? | The service contract at its deployed revision |
| Is this proposal implemented? | Implementation evidence, never the proposal itself |
| Does this product support it? | The product’s own statement, dated |
Resolving a disagreement
Section titled “Resolving a disagreement”Do not vote. Check, in order:
- Same network?
- Same chain position, or is one behind?
- Same validator revision?
- Is the behavior activation sensitive at that height?
- Same projection?
Only when all five match does a disagreement mean one source is wrong. Until then it is a version, position, or scope difference.
For anything with value at stake
Section titled “For anything with value at stake”Compare more than one compatible source, and treat any disagreement as a hold rather than a tie-break. Record the revision and generation of each answer so the difference can be explained afterwards.
What this documentation does
Section titled “What this documentation does”Every source-sensitive page carries a source panel with the repository, the exact revision, the path, the applicable networks, the last verified date, and the known limitations. Where evidence is missing, the page says so rather than guessing.