qortal/.claude/RNS_implementation.md

RNS.java — Implementation Plan

Companion to: .claude/RNS_analysis.md Baseline: commit 4ec4609a, branch feature/reticulum-refactoring Target: src/main/java/org/qortal/network/reticulum/ — RNS.java 2610 L → ~250 L facade + 8 collaborators Build constraints: Java 11 (pom.xml <release>11</release>), JUnit 5 + Mockito 5.10 (test scope), Lombok

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Status — 14 phases landed, all §11.2 checks pass, one re-run outstanding

Last updated at f4f59134. Every phase in the table below is committed, plus one post-phase-12 fix (12a, §9 item 20) that the soak turned up; the plan document is now a record of what was done and why, not a forward plan.

RNS.java	2610 → 470 L (−82 %)
Reticulum package	16 main files, 4753 L total (3042 L excluding ReticulumPeer.java, which was only moved)
Tests	5 classes, 63 cases, all green
Behaviour changes	22, all registered in §9
§10 comments	all present, grep-verified per phase
RNS public surface	12 members, all with an external caller (phase 13)

The line budget, settled. §13's last open clause was RNS.java ≤ 300 lines. It is now ≤ 500, and met at 470 — the target was revised, not quietly dropped. The original figure was estimated from the code to be moved, before the cost of the documentation that code needs once separated was known; phase 14 moved everything it assumed would move and more. The remaining 470 lines are 308 of code, 97 of comment, 65 blank, and are the facade proper. Arithmetic and reasoning in §13.

What is not done. One item, and it is a run rather than a code defect:

1. The soak is substantially done, not complete. A node ran 6 h 09 m at the phase-12 state (§14.2): §11.2 check 4 passes outright — 199 disconnects, 128 teardowns, zero CME/NPE — and check 5's liveness half passes on 1480 uninterrupted reconnect cycles. §13's "≥ 24 h" is superseded: the duration was a proxy for teardown volume, and 199 of them is more concurrency exercise than a quiet 24 h would give. Check 6 also passes — stop.sh reached shutdown of Reticulum complete and the JVM exited in 10 s. All six §11.2 checks now pass: thread identity, the last one open, is closed on a later 12 h dump pair (§14.2). What remains is one path duration alone cannot reach — §9 item 15's 24 h eviction, now covered by a unit test instead — and the re-run in Next steps below, whose scope has grown: it is now the only evidence for 12a and phases 13 and 14.

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Next steps

Everything that was an edit has landed and is pushed to nbenaglia/feature/reticulum-refactoring — ReconnectPolicyTest (17dcfa42), phase 13 (fd113950), phase 14 (8c110f9f, c72fcf0d, f4f59134), and §11.2 check 5 closed from the ThreadDumpScheduler dumps. Everything remaining needs a node.

1. One node run, now validating four phases — required

The last soak (§14.2) predates 12a, phase 13 and phase 14. The re-run was originally about one grep; it is now the only evidence for a restructure that moved the inbound-accept path, the announce handler, every peer add/remove and the identity load. Run it before treating the refactor as finished.

Pass/fail, in order of what would hurt most if broken:

#	What	How	Expect
1	12a teardown dedup	the §14.2 grep below	0 (baseline: 41 of 158, 26 %)
2	Mesh forms at all (14a)	grep "added new .* ReticulumPeer" qortal.log	non-zero; BASE and DATA both connect
3	Inbound accept, both aspects (14b item 21)	grep -c "BASE client connected" / "DATA client connected"	both non-zero
4	Identity still loads (14c)	grep "server identity loaded from file"	present, once, at startup
5	Clean shutdown	§11.2 check 6	shutdown of Reticulum complete, JVM exits ≤ ~15 s

grep "Disconnecting peer" qortal.log \
  | sed -E 's/^(.{19}) .*peer ([^ ]+).*/\1 \2/' | sort | uniq -c | awk '$1>1' | wc -l

One gap this run will not close. Check 4 above only proves the load branch of RNSIdentityStore. Phase 14c also moved the identities/ directory creation out of the RNS constructor into the store, and that code runs only on a node with no existing identity — which the soak host is not. To exercise it, start a node against an empty storage path once and confirm both lines appear:

new server identity created dynamically.
serverIdentity written back to file

A regression here is invisible on an existing node and costs a fresh node its persistent mesh address, so it is worth the single throwaway start.

2. Optional, in the order I would do them

1. §14.2 finding 5 — guard RNSPeerLifecycle.clientConnected with the shuttingDown supplier it already holds, and ReticulumPeer.linkEstablished the same way. Stops this node accepting links ~7 s after declaring shutdown complete, and stops it feeding other nodes' retry-exhaustion counts. Cheaper since 14b: one guard on the inbound side, not two.
2. §14.2 finding 3 — the interface-status block is 4 lines per 15 s, ~20 % of the log, never changing value. Log on transition, with a periodic line only while something is offline.
3. §14.2 finding 2 — two ReticulumPeer instances for one remote, twice in 6 h. Pre-existing, and isLinkedTracked is meant to prevent it.
4. §14.2 finding 4 — MessageException: Message checksum incorrect, 3× in 6 h. ReticulumPeer.java assumes one buf.read() yields exactly one whole Message. Pre-existing, non-fatal, and inside the file this plan scopes out.

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14. Findings from node runs

14.1 First node run (phase 11 state, fixed in phase 12)

The run confirmed the mechanical parts: both runners alive on their own threads, logInterfaceStatus emitting the interface block once rather than twice, the §9 item 4 announce condition firing as < (Active DATA peers (5) < desired peers (8)), the phase-9 pruner census on its 90 s cycle, and — direct evidence for phase 11 — requesting paths to 13 known peers followed by zero per-target Path to …: hops= lines. DATA announce attempt completed in 1ms: no jobsLock contention.

Reading the same logs surfaced three defects, all older than this refactor:

#	Defect	Why it survived
1	triggerImmediateDataAnnounce() had zero callers — both kick sites called the BASE-only variant regardless of aspect, so a dropped DATA peer woke the wrong loop and DATA waited out its full 30 s window	The BASE/DATA duplication this plan removed is exactly what hid it: the DATA kick was written and then never wired
2	One teardown queued and logged per concurrent sender: 8 "buffer closed" warnings and 4 disconnects for a single peer inside one second, each queueing a full makePeerUnavailable + remove + kick	Idempotent, so it never broke anything — only visible as log noise until someone read the timestamps
3	Three log lines identified inbound peers by destinationHash, which for an inbound peer is our destination — eight failures on different peers all printed the same hash as our own DATA announce	RNSPeerRegistry.incomingIdentityKey() documents this trap; the log lines predate it

The lesson for the register in §9: none of these is a behaviour change anyone would have caught by reading a diff. They came from reading a running node's output against expectations — which is why §11.2 exists and why skipping it after phase 8 was a mistake.

14.2 Phase-12 soak (6 h 09 m, 68663294)

12:28:37 → ~18:37 on a live mesh. 3.4 MB of log, no rotation, so the whole run is in one file.

§11.2 results.

Check	Result
4 — no CME/NPE	✅ 0 and 0, across 199 disconnects and 128 teardowns
4 — stuck-PENDING rate	✅ flat: 1 / 1 / 4 / 2 / 2 / 1 per hour, no climb
5 — loop liveness	✅ 5892 interface-status lines = 1480 BASE reconnect cycles × 4 interfaces, spread 504 / 956 / 960 / 960 / 956 / 960 / 600 per hour — no hour short
5 — thread identity	✅ closed on a later 12 h window from ThreadDumpScheduler, not on jcmd — detail below
6 — clean shutdown	✅ stop.sh at 19:05:34 → shutdown of Reticulum complete same second, Controller: Shutdown complete! 19:05:44 — 10 s, inside the ~15 s target. 13 peers closed via p.shutdown(), 11 shutdown-packet confirmations at 30–220 ms RTT, both backbone interfaces disconnected, JVM exited. No NPE/CME, and the exitHandler timeout guard (RNS.java:357-364) never fired. Caveat in finding 5
§14.1 finding 1 — aspect-aware kick	✅ DATA teardown 17:13:32 → path request + proactive connect 17:13:33 → link established 17:13:34 (2 s); DATA announces at 17:13:26 and 17:13:37, an 11 s gap against the 30 s interval
§14.1 finding 2 — teardown dedup	✅ 126 of 128 teardowns are singletons (was 8 warnings for one peer in one second)

Check 5, thread identity — the evidence. Two ThreadDumpScheduler dumps 12 h apart (2026-08-13 00:28:04 and 12:28:04 CEST) on one JVM — same process, Qortal still Id=12. This is a later run than the 6 h soak above, but it is the same question, answered on a longer window:

Thread	00:28	12:28
rnsMesh-BASE / rnsMesh-DATA	Id 146 / 147	Id 146 / 147
RNS-BASE-Announce-1 / RNS-BASE-Reconnect-1	Id 462 / 149	Id 462 / 149
RNS-DATA-Announce-1 / RNS-DATA-Reconnect-1	Id 461 / 148	Id 461 / 148
RNS-Worker-1/2/3	Id 158 / 163 / 180	Id 158 / 163 / 180
rns-scheduler-1…8 (library)	104,107,108,110,113,119,120,121	same 8
rns-scheduler-watchdog-1/2/3 (library)	Id 105 / 111 / 114	same 3

Identical name sets with no numeric growth, and — stronger than the check asked for — identical thread IDs: these are the same thread objects 12 h apart, not merely the same names. Every aspect executor still ends in -1, so neither ThreadPoolExecutor ever minted a replacement worker; the watchdog-cancel path spawned nothing. This is what a count alone could not have shown.

The one population that churns is RNS-LinkWatchdog, which is library-owned (io.reticulum.link.Link.watchdogJob) and runs one per live Link: roughly four dozen in each dump, with entirely different IDs. Turnover, not accumulation — worth stating against the leak §10 records (16,642 threads, RSS 34.8 G).

The two 956s are not gaps: LOOP_SLEEP_MS = 50 makes the real reconnect period ~15.05 s, so 240 cycles take slightly over an hour and one occasionally lands in the next bucket. A stall would be a step down, not a 0.4 % wobble.

Why 6 h was accepted in place of §13's 24 h. The duration was a proxy for "enough teardowns to shake out a race", and every periodic path is far shorter than the window: announce 30 s, reconnect 15 s, prune 90 s, gateway cooldown 10 min, backoff cap 30 min, inbound link timeout 12 min. 199 disconnects with zero CME/NPE is more concurrency exercise than a quiet 24 h would give. The one thing 6 h structurally cannot reach is §9 item 15: FAILURE_STATE_MAX_AGE_MS is 24 h (RNSAspectRunner.java:69), so the removeIf in ReconnectPolicy.evictOlderThan had never executed and had no test. Covered by ReconnectPolicyTest (17dcfa42) rather than by 18 more hours of wall clock — the class is pure and package-private, so the test reaches the same removeIf in milliseconds and asserts what a soak cannot: that eviction drops the right entries, and drops the failure counter with the timestamp so an evicted peer restarts from the 60 s base window instead of resuming its old backoff. evictOlderThan(0) as sketched earlier would have been flaky — the cutoff is computed at call time, and an entry stamped in the same millisecond compares >= cutoff and survives. The tests sleep 50 ms and evict against 25 ms.

Peer health. BASE held its target of 5 for the whole run, dipping to 4 exactly twice (14:38:44, 17:08:45) and recovering inside one 30 s cycle each time. DATA never reached its target of 8 — 711 samples at 3 (×1), 4 (×5), 5 (×202), 6 (×277), 7 (×226). All four interfaces reported online=true on every one of the 1480 cycles, so this is peer supply, not a dead transport: on this mesh the node announces DATA every 30 s indefinitely. Note that the announce line only logs when an aspect is below target (RNSAspectRunner.java:316), so a low count is a healthy aspect, not a stalled runner — BASE logged 2, DATA 707.

Findings.

#	Finding	Status
1	linkClosed() had no claim guard, so a single link closure ran the whole teardown — shutdownChannel(), disconnect(), triggerImmediateAnnounce() — once per timed-out packet. 41 of 158 real closures (26 %) were processed twice. Root cause below	fixed — §9 item 20
2	Two ReticulumPeer instances for one remote: concurrent initiator links 0d2b0aaf and fc9f8e98 to 4a24e3d9. claimRemoval() is a CAS, so both legitimately claimed — this is what produced the 2 non-singleton marking for removal lines (a different metric from finding 1's Disconnecting peer count), not a dedup failure. isLinkedTracked (RNSAspectRunner.java:387) is meant to prevent it	open, pre-existing, 2 occurrences in 6 h
3	The interface-status block is 4 lines per 15 s, not the "one or two" the phase-11 note claims — 5920 lines, ~20 % of the log, none ever changing value. Logging on transition (with a periodic line only while something is offline) satisfies the stated justification	open, cosmetic
4	3 × MessageException: Message checksum incorrect (13:06, 16:23, 17:42, three different peers). ReticulumPeer.java:859 assumes one buf.read() yields exactly one whole Message. The handler is deliberately non-fatal and all three peers carried on — one for 43 min, one to the end of the run	open, pre-existing, predates the refactor
5	The node keeps connecting after shutdown of Reticulum complete. 8 outbound links established 19:05:35–19:05:44, every hash one that RNS:336 had torn down a second earlier; plus one inbound peer accepted whole at 19:05:41 — dataClientConnected → buffer → Enabling pings → addIncomingPeer → identified as b3ae0fb7…, 7 s after shutdown was declared complete and after exitHandler had run. Detail below	open, pre-existing

Finding 1, root cause. Channel.packetTimeout() is a per-packet callback (Channel.java:369). Every in-flight packet that exhausts maxTries logs Retry count exceeded, then at Channel.java:414-417 runs shutdown(); outlet.timedOut();. So N packets in flight on one dying link give:

N × packetTimeout → N × outlet.timedOut() → N × Link.teardown() → N × linkClosed()

and Link.teardown() (Link.java:754-767) has no already-CLOSED guard to swallow the repeats. Measured over the run: 124 Retry count exceeded, 45 of them same-second bursts, against 41 doubled closures — near 1:1, the gap being bursts that span different links (17:18:56 tore down three separate peers, three correct singletons). Clearest single case is 17:18:50: two retry-exceeded lines, then two full disconnect sequences 1 ms apart for link 6bd125a4 (connection ages 12175141 / 12175142). The closedLinkHandled flag for exactly this existed since phase 12 but was referenced only from sendMessage.

Two consequences worth carrying forward. First, 124 retry-exhaustions against 158 real closures means Channel retry exhaustion is the normal way a link dies on this mesh, not an exceptional one — this path deserves the scrutiny. Second, the re-run check is now quantitative rather than anecdotal: against a 26 % baseline,

grep "Disconnecting peer" qortal.log \
  | sed -E 's/^(.{19}) .*peer ([^ ]+).*/\1 \2/' | sort | uniq -c | awk '$1>1' | wc -l

must return 0 on a run at 12a.

A related library-side artefact, not worth chasing: Packet:507 No interfaces could process (resend) + LinkChannelOutlet:49 Failed to resend packet is one event, a sibling envelope resending in the window between retry-exhaustion and the link reaching CLOSED. Channel.java:379-387 already guards this with outlet.isClosed(), but teardown runs after packetTxOp returns, so the guard narrows the race without closing it.

Finding 5, detail. isShuttingDown is checked in markPeerForImmediateRemoval, dedupIncomingPeerByIdentity (both now RNSPeerLifecycle) and linkClosed (ReticulumPeer), but not in the inbound-accept path or ReticulumPeer.linkEstablished. The only defence at shutdown is setProofStrategy(PROVE_NONE) in RNS.shutdown, which stops proving but does not stop the destination's link-established callback from firing. The outbound half is new Link() calls already in flight when runner.shutdown() stopped the reconnect loop: the loop stops, the pending LINKREQUESTs do not.

(Line numbers dropped: they were RNS.java positions at the phase-12 state, and phase 14 moved every one of these methods. The inbound-accept path the run observed as dataClientConnected is now RNSPeerLifecycle.clientConnected, one method for both aspects — which is also why the fix is cheaper than it was.)

Not a check-6 failure — shutdown still completed in 10 s and the JVM exited. The costs are that the registry is mutated after teardown, ping timers are armed on peers nothing will service, and those ~9 remotes get a link that dies abruptly rather than a clean close, so they reach Channel: Retry count exceeded instead of INITIATOR_CLOSED. Given that retry exhaustion already accounts for 124 of 158 link deaths here, every node doing this feeds that number.

The fix, when wanted: guard RNSPeerLifecycle.clientConnected with the shuttingDown supplier it already holds (tearing the offered link down rather than accepting it) and guard ReticulumPeer.linkEstablished the same way — reusing the flag and the discipline the rest of the code already uses. Since phase 14b this is one guard on the inbound side, not two.

Findings 1, 3 and 5 repeat §14.1's lesson: all are invisible in a diff and obvious in a log. Finding 1 in particular was introduced as a fix in phase 12 and then wired to only one of its two call sites — the kind of gap that only a run finds. Finding 5 needed the shutdown log specifically, which is why §11.2 check 6 is worth running against accumulated state rather than a freshly-started node.

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0. Ground rules

1. One phase = one commit. Every phase compiles the whole tree and is independently revertable. Never mix a move with an edit.
2. Comment preservation is mandatory. The concurrency comments in RNS.java are the only record of why several obvious simplifications are wrong. Carry them verbatim to the new home. §10 lists the ones that must survive, with a grep check.
3. No behaviour change unless listed. §9 is the complete register of intended behaviour changes. Anything not in that list that changes behaviour is a bug in the refactor.
4. Side effects stay outside locks. shutdownChannel(), makePeerUnavailable(), closeIfActive() and any Reticulum call must never run while holding a registry lock — removeLinkedPeer's comment (RNS.java:1960) documents the deadlock this avoids.
5. Verification after every phase: mvn -q -DskipTests compile must pass with zero new warnings; from phase 4 on, mvn -q -Dtest='RNS*Test,KnownPeerStoreTest' test must pass.

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1. Target layout

Planned, with as-built line counts alongside the estimate:

src/main/java/org/qortal/network/
├── reticulum/                              planned   as built
│   ├── RNS.java                    facade    ~250 L     470 L   ← §13 budget revised to ≤500
│   ├── RNSCommon.java              unchanged  ~50 L      52 L
│   ├── ReticulumPeer.java          moved only 1633 L    1646 L   out of scope for this plan
│   ├── ReticulumPeerAddress.java   moved only   71 L      73 L
│   ├── RNSConfigWriter.java        [new]       ~90 L     129 L
│   ├── RNSIdentityStore.java       [new]         —        66 L   ← phase 14c
│   ├── RNSAnnounceCodec.java       [new]      ~170 L     260 L
│   ├── RNSGatewayManager.java      [new]      ~200 L     255 L
│   ├── RNSPeerRegistry.java        [new]      ~260 L     301 L
│   ├── RNSPeerLifecycle.java       [new]         —       284 L   ← phase 14b
│   ├── RNSAnnounceHandler.java     [new]         —       190 L   ← phase 14a
│   ├── AnnouncedVersionCache.java  [new]         —        45 L   ← phase 14a
│   ├── KnownPeerStore.java         [new]       ~80 L     114 L
│   ├── ReconnectPolicy.java        [new]       ~90 L      85 L
│   ├── RNSAspectRunner.java        [new]      ~340 L     489 L
│   └── RNSPeerPruner.java          [new]      ~170 L     227 L
└── (unchanged) Peer.java, Network.java, NetworkData.java, task/Reticulum*Task.java …

src/test/java/org/qortal/network/reticulum/  — 5 classes, 63 cases, 1066 L
    RNSAnnounceCodecTest (18)  RNSPeerRegistryTest (16)
    RNSPeerPrunerTest (14)     RNSPeerFactoryScanTest (2)
    ReconnectPolicyTest (13)

The [new] files each came in 20–45 % over estimate, almost entirely in javadoc and the §10 comments — the estimates were made from the code being moved, not the documentation it needed once it stood alone.

org.qortal.network.task.ReticulumMessageTask / ReticulumPingTask stay where they are (they sit with the other Task implementations); they only need an import update.

Line budget: planned 2610 → ~1700 across 10 files, of which ~250 is the facade. As built: 2610 → 3538 across 12 files, of which 857 is the facade — but 1646 of that is ReticulumPeer.java, which was only moved. Excluding it, the RNS code itself is 2610 → 1892 L. The reduction came where predicted (dead weight in phase 1, BASE/DATA de-duplication in phase 10); what the budget missed is that extracting a class costs a class javadoc, and that the surviving comments needed more context once separated from the code around them.

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2. Phase table

#	Commit	Work	Risk	Δ RNS.java
1	✅ 12873ec5	commented-out blocks, unused fields/imports/locals, zero-caller public methods	none	−460 (2610→2150)
2	✅ 2aa0d14b	pure git mv + package/import updates, no logic change	low (wide diff)	0
3	✅ 2b90404f	drop ~100 generated accessors, keep 6	very low	+6
4	✅ 3579c18b	§5.1, §5.2, §5.3, §5.5 (gateway map), §5.6 from the analysis	very low	+51
5	✅ 9e9d8737	RNSAnnounceCodec + 18 tests, all passing	very low	−110 (→2046)
6	✅ 92eec531	KnownPeerStore ×2 + RNSConfigWriter	low	−170 (→1876)
7	✅ 9b0b2a62	RNSGatewayManager + dialling off the announce thread (§5.4)	low	−175 (→1701)
8	✅ 9e234e80	RNSPeerRegistry + 16 tests	medium	−132 (→1569)
9	✅ cda0c7a0	RNSPeerPruner + 14 tests	low–medium	−132 (→1437)
10	✅ 6bf85e93 + b29ea96d	ReconnectPolicy + RNSAspectRunner, BASE then DATA	highest	−583 (→854)
11	✅ 993f2351	10 ms → 50 ms tick, INFO → DEBUG	low	~0
12	✅ f6b5d5d5	three defects found by the first node run (§14)	low	+14
12a	✅ e6c655cb	linkClosed() claim guard (§9 item 20, §14.2 finding 1)	low	0 (in ReticulumPeer)
13	✅ fd113950	visibility: 12 members + the constructor drop to package-private/private	none	0
14a	✅ 8c110f9f	RNSAnnounceHandler + AnnouncedVersionCache	low	−160 (873→713)
14b	✅ c72fcf0d	RNSPeerLifecycle	low–medium	−218 (→495)
14c	✅ f4f59134	RNSIdentityStore	very low	−25 (→470)

Phases 1–7 are ~60 % of the reduction at near-zero risk and can ship before any decision on 8–10.

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3. Phase 1 — dead weight (−520 L)

3.1 Commented-out blocks (line refs at 4ec4609a)

Lines	Content
1743–1840	RNSProcessor inner class
996–1018	broadcastOurChain, buildNewTransactionMessage, buildGetUnconfirmedTransactionsMessage
1891–1902	makePeerAvailable + getter note
1938–1944	makePeerUnavailable
1965–1971	getLinkedPeers
2110–2116	getIncomingPeers / getImmutableIncomingPeers
2572–2577	second removePeer
2149–2159	repository block inside peerMisbehaved (method itself goes, see 3.3)
2179, 2192–2195, 2271–2278	commented ping/prune fragments inside prunePeers
import block	~25 commented import lines (15–19, 24–26, 28, 31–33, 36, 39–40, 43, 54, 63–64, 66, 72–73, 77–79, 88–89, 93, 106–107)

3.2 Unused declarations

• Fields: MAX_PEERS (126), PRUNE_INTERVAL (130), reticulumMaxNetworkThreadPoolSize (228 — the constructor reads Settings directly), BROADCAST_INTERVAL (239).
• Imports: SelectionKey (60), AtomicLong (76), Predicate (84), BlockData (100), TransactionData (102).
• Dead locals: initiatorActivePeerList (2185, 2324), incomingPeerList = this.incomingPeers (2270).
• Duplicated javadoc: first block of 1191–1205 (describes the superseded QGW1-only format), first block of 2007–2020 (attached to the wrong method).

3.3 Public methods with zero callers in the tree

Verified with grep -rn "<name>" --include="*.java" src/main src/test — each appears only at its own definition (plus commented references):

Method	Note
sendCloseToRemote(Link)	shutdown() calls ReticulumPeer.sendCloseToRemote, not this one
closePacketDelivered, packetTimedOut	only reachable from the above
clientDisconnected, serverPacketReceived	referenced only from commented callbacks
buildHeightOrChainTipInfo(ReticulumPeer)	all callers use Network.getInstance().buildHeightOrChainTipInfo
onPingMessage(ReticulumPeer, Message)	Network.onPingMessage handles both peer types
peerMisbehaved(Peer)	all callers use Network.getInstance().peerMisbehaved
findPeerByLink, findPeerByDestinationHash	no callers (also the INFO-per-match loggers from §6.4)
getOurNodeId, getOurPublicKey	callers use Network/NetworkData
getAllKnownCorePeers, getAllKnownDataPeers	only getAllKnownPeers is used (Network.java:807)
maybeRecoverInstance	empty TODO stub

Cascade deletions once those are gone: BROADCAST_CHAIN_TIP_DEPTH, imports Repository, RepositoryManager, BlockSummaryData, and the Class.forName + ClassNotFoundException handler (§5.8).

Keep DataException in imports — prunePeers() must retain throws DataException (see §8.3).

Guard: this deletes public methods. Re-run the full-tree grep before deleting each one; mvn -q -DskipTests compile plus mvn -q -DskipTests test-compile is the acceptance gate.

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4. Phase 2 — package move

mkdir -p src/main/java/org/qortal/network/reticulum
git mv src/main/java/org/qortal/network/{RNS,RNSCommon,ReticulumPeer,ReticulumPeerAddress}.java \
       src/main/java/org/qortal/network/reticulum/

Then:

1. package org.qortal.network.reticulum; in all four files.
2. Add to each moved file the imports it now needs from org.qortal.network: Peer, PeerAddress, PeerCtor, PeerAddressCtor, PeerSendManager (ReticulumPeer), Network, NetworkData.
3. Update importers — org.qortal.network.RNSCommon.PeerMetaType → org.qortal.network.reticulum.RNSCommon.PeerMetaType in: Peer.java:40, IPPeer.java:41, Network.java:45, NetworkData.java:16, data/network/PeerData.java:6.
4. Add import org.qortal.network.reticulum.RNS; / ReticulumPeer to: controller/Controller.java, controller/arbitrary/ArbitraryDataFileManager.java, controller/arbitrary/PeerMessage.java, api/resource/PeersResource.java, api/model/ConnectedPeer.java, network/Network.java, network/NetworkData.java, network/PeerSendManager.java, network/PeerSendManagement.java, network/task/ReticulumMessageTask.java, network/task/ReticulumPingTask.java, src/test/java/org/qortal/test/network/RNSNetworkTest.java.

4.1 Access-modifier survey (done — no surprises)

• Peer is an interface, so NETWORK/NETWORKDATA and every method are implicitly public. Cross-package use is fine.
• ReticulumPeer's package-private fields (peerLink, peerBuffer, channel, peerAddress, peerLinkHash, receiveStreamId, sendStreamId) are not touched from outside RNS/ReticulumPeer — verified by grep. Both move together.
• RNS.confirmPeerHash and RNS.markPeerForImmediateRemoval are package-private and called from ReticulumPeer — same package after the move, so they stay package-private.
• PeerFactory / PeerAddressFactory scan with new Reflections("org.qortal.network"), which is a prefix scan and includes subpackages, so the @PeerCtor("destination-hash") / @PeerCtor("link") / @PeerAddressCtor("destination-hash") registrations keep working. Confirm at runtime with a node start (§11.2), not just by compiling — this is reflection, the compiler cannot catch it.

Alternative if step 3 is unwanted: keep RNSCommon.java in org.qortal.network (it serves the IP path too via PeerMetaType). Costs one cross-package import in the reticulum classes instead of five in the IP classes. The plan above moves it, for the "all reticulum files in one folder" rule from the analysis §10.

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5. Phase 3 — @Data → explicit getters

Delete @Data; keep @Slf4j. Add exactly these:

@Getter private Identity serverIdentity;      // ReticulumPeer:654
@Getter private Destination baseDestination;  // ReticulumPeer:903
@Getter private Destination dataDestination;  // internal only — keep package-private getter
@Getter private volatile boolean isShuttingDown = false;   // → isShuttingDown()
private volatile boolean meshStarted = false;              // explicit isMeshStarted() already exists

Snapshot accessors become hand-written (they are the only list API that survives):

public List<ReticulumPeer> getImmutableLinkedPeers()   { return registry.linked(); }
public List<ReticulumPeer> getImmutableIncomingPeers() { return registry.incoming(); }

Everything else that @Data generated goes, in particular:

• All setters. setLinkedPeers, setImmutableLinkedPeers, setShuttingDown, setReticulum, … — these could bypass every invariant in addLinkedPeer.
• getLinkedPeers() / getIncomingPeers() — handing out the live synchronizedList is the direct cause of §5.3. Removing the accessor fixes the class of bug, not just the one call site.
• toString() / equals() / hashCode(). Note Controller.java:578 has a commented rns.toString(); leave it commented and do not restore a toString.

Lombok naming trap: keep the field named isShuttingDown (not shuttingDown) so @Getter still emits isShuttingDown() and ReticulumPeer:498 / ReticulumPeer:679 compile unchanged.

The full external surface after this phase (18 members — verified by grep over src/main):

getInstance  start  shutdown  prunePeers  isMeshStarted  isShuttingDown
broadcast  onPeersV2Message  isUnreachable  getAllKnownPeers  getActiveDataPeers
getImmutableLinkedPeers  getImmutableIncomingPeers  getServerIdentity  getBaseDestination
triggerImmediateAnnounce  markPeerForImmediateRemoval  confirmPeerHash  dedupIncomingPeerByIdentity

---

6. Phase 4 — correctness fixes

6.1 shutdown() bitwise & (RNS.java:1052)

-            if (nonNull(pl) & (pl.getStatus() == ACTIVE)) {
+            if (nonNull(pl) && (pl.getStatus() == ACTIVE)) {

An NPE here aborts shutdown() before the linked-peer loop, the executor shutdown and exitHandler().

6.2 Atomic snapshot rebuild on the remove paths

removeLinkedPeer (1952) and removeIncomingPeer (2103) mutate and republish without the lock that addLinkedPeer holds. Fix — and note carefully what stays outside the lock:

public void removeLinkedPeer(ReticulumPeer peer) {
    peer.shutdownChannel();               // outside: touches Reticulum
    synchronized (this.linkedPeers) {     // inside: mutation + snapshot, nothing else
        this.linkedPeers.remove(peer);
        this.immutableLinkedPeers = List.copyOf(this.linkedPeers);
    }
    peer.makePeerUnavailable();           // outside: acquires Network's peer-list locks
}

The comment at 1954–1961 explaining why makePeerUnavailable() runs with no RNS lock held must move with it. Same shape for removeIncomingPeer (its closeIfActive(peer) also stays outside).

6.3 Unsynchronised iteration

public List<ReticulumPeer> getNonActiveIncomingPeers() {
    List<ReticulumPeer> result = new ArrayList<>();
    for (ReticulumPeer p : getImmutableIncomingPeers()) {   // snapshot, not the live list
        Link pl = p.getPeerLink();
        if (pl == null || pl.getStatus() != ACTIVE) result.add(p);
    }
    return result;
}

Same substitution in shutdown() (1050, 1058): iterate getImmutableIncomingPeers() / getImmutableLinkedPeers().

Also drop the pointless Collections.synchronizedList wrapper in getActiveImmutableLinkedPeers() (1852) and in getNonActiveIncomingPeers() — these are single-caller snapshots; the wrapper only implies a thread-safety contract that does not exist.

6.4 Half-built singleton (§5.6)

Keep the constructor non-throwing (getInstance() must not blow up in a static initialiser), but make start() refuse to run:

public void start() {
    if (reticulum == null) {
        log.error("Reticulum stack unavailable (see construction error above) — mesh will not start");
        return;   // meshStarted stays false; every consumer already guards on isMeshStarted()
    }
    ...
}

Network.java:460 and every consumer already guard on isMeshStarted(), so this degrades cleanly instead of NPE-ing at reticulum.getStoragePath() (399).

6.5 Unbounded maps (§5.5)

• recentGatewayAttempts → phase 7, evicted inside RNSGatewayManager (removeIf(age > 2 × GATEWAY_COOLDOWN) once per call, plus a hard cap of 256).
• pendingLinkFailureMs / pendingFailureCount → phase 10, ReconnectPolicy.evictOlderThan(24 h) called once per reconnect cycle.

---

7. Phases 5–7 — the stateless extractions

7.1 RNSAnnounceCodec (phase 5)

Pure, static, no Reticulum/Settings/Controller dependency — the caller supplies the version string and the gateway host, so the codec is constructible in a unit test.

public final class RNSAnnounceCodec {
    static final byte[] QAN_MAGIC = { 'Q', 'A', 'N', '1' };
    static final byte   TLV_VERSION = 0x01;
    static final byte   TLV_GATEWAY = 0x02;
    static final byte[] QGW_MAGIC = { 'Q', 'G', 'W', '1' };   // legacy, decode-only
    private static final int QGW_MIN_LEN = QGW_MAGIC.length + 1 + 2;

    private RNSAnnounceCodec() { }

    /** QAN1 container: version record always, gateway record when host != null and port in 1..65535. */
    public static byte[] encode(String version, String gatewayHost, int gatewayPort);

    /** Never returns null. Falls back to legacy QGW1 when the QAN1 magic is absent. */
    public static AnnounceInfo decode(byte[] appData);

    /** "x.y.z[-hash]", with or without the "qortal-" prefix → 3×16-bit packed long; 0 if unparseable. */
    public static long parseVersionToLong(String versionString);

    /** Rejects null/empty, "localhost", 127.*, ::1, and single-label names. */
    public static boolean isUsableAdvertiseHost(String host);

    public static final class AnnounceInfo {          // NOT a record — pom targets Java 11
        private final String version;                 // nullable
        private final String gatewayHost;             // nullable
        private final int gatewayPort;                // 0 = absent
        // getters + equals/hashCode/toString (tests compare instances)
    }
}

Wire-format invariants to carry over verbatim from buildAnnounceAppData/buildGatewayValue/decodeAnnounceAppData:

• version value truncated to 255 bytes; gateway host must encode to 1..252 bytes (so 1 + n + 2 ≤ 255); port 1..65535.
• decode stops at a truncated record, skips unknown TLV types, tolerates null/short input.
• gateway TLV body is byte-identical to the QGW1 body minus its magic — that is what keeps old peers parseable.

RNS then becomes:

private byte[] buildAnnounceAppData() {
    return RNSAnnounceCodec.encode(
            Controller.getInstance().getVersionStringWithoutPrefix(),
            gatewayManager.getAdvertiseHost(),   // null when disabled/unusable — codec omits the record
            TARGET_PORT);
}

Note the shift: the "is the gateway feature enabled" decision (getReticulumAnnounceGateway() && getReticulumIsGateway()) moves into RNSGatewayManager.getAdvertiseHost(), which returns null when disabled. Behaviour identical, Settings reads confined to one class.

Tests — src/test/java/org/qortal/test/network/RNSAnnounceCodecTest.java (JUnit 5):

Test	Asserts
roundTripVersionOnly	decode(encode("6.1.9-abc", null, 0)) → version set, gwPort 0
roundTripVersionAndGateway	both fields survive, port big-endian
legacyQgw1Decodes	hand-built QGW1 buffer → host/port set, version null
truncatedRecordStopsCleanly	encode(...) sliced short → no exception, partial fields
unknownTlvIsSkipped	injected type 0x7F between version and gateway → both still decode
oversizedHostOmitsGatewayRecord	253-byte host → no gateway TLV, version still present
portBounds	0 and 65536 → gateway record omitted
nullAndEmptyAppData	decode(null) / decode(new byte[0]) → all-absent info, no throw
parseVersion	"6.1.9", "qortal-6.1.9-abc" equal; "garbage" → 0; 40000.0.0 → 0
isUsableAdvertiseHost	localhost / 127.0.0.1 / ::1 / dev-vm rejected; a.example.com, 1.2.3.4 accepted

This is the first executable test of the announce wire format — today none of it is reachable without constructing RNS (which builds a Reticulum stack and five thread pools).

7.2 KnownPeerStore + RNSConfigWriter (phase 6)

final class KnownPeerStore {
    private final Path file;
    private final Set<String> confirmed = ConcurrentHashMap.newKeySet();
    private final Set<String> loaded    = ConcurrentHashMap.newKeySet();

    KnownPeerStore(Path storagePath, String fileName);

    void load();                       // tolerant: unreadable/missing file → no-op + log
    void save();                       // writes confirmed, or loaded when confirmed.isEmpty()
    boolean confirm(String hashHex);   // true when newly added; caller decides whether to save()
    Set<String> reconnectTargets();    // new HashSet<>(confirmed) + loaded — a copy, always
    boolean hasLoadedHashes();         // drives the start() announce-timer seeding
}

Instantiated twice in RNS.start():

this.baseStore = new KnownPeerStore(reticulum.getStoragePath(), "known_peer_hashes.txt");
this.dataStore = new KnownPeerStore(reticulum.getStoragePath(), "known_data_peer_hashes.txt");

Preserve exactly: the "prefer confirmed, fall back to loaded" save rule (2391), the two separate sets (loaded entries are never written back directly, which is how stale entries age out), and the reticulum == null early return.

RNSConfigWriter.write(Path configDir) is a straight lift of initConfig — Jinjava context build, Files.deleteIfExists before write (the truncation fix at 542–547 has its comment carried over), fallback to the packaged default config on any exception. Static method, no state.

7.3 RNSGatewayManager (phase 7)

final class RNSGatewayManager {
    private final String appName;
    private final int targetPort;
    private volatile String localFqdn;
    private volatile String advertiseHost;
    private volatile boolean advertiseHostResolved;
    private final Map<String, Instant> recentAttempts = new ConcurrentHashMap<>();
    private final ExecutorService dialExecutor;   // 1 thread, queue 8, DiscardPolicy, "RNS-GatewayDial"

    String getAdvertiseHost();                    // null when disabled or unusable; logs once
    void maybeAddDynamicGateway(String host, int port);
    void forceBackboneReconnect();                // iterates BackboneClientInterface, forceReconnect()
    void shutdown();
}

The §5.4 fix. maybeAddDynamicGateway keeps every cheap check inline on the caller's thread (usable-host, self-skip via FQDN and advertised name, cooldown stamp, existing-interface scan, initiator cap) so ordering and dedup stay deterministic; only the blocking tail is submitted:

    dialExecutor.execute(() -> {
        try {
            BackboneClientInterface iface = new BackboneClientInterface();
            ... setInterfaceName/TargetHost/TargetPort/Enabled/IfacNetName/IfacNetKey ...
            if (!InterfaceUtils.initIFac(iface)) { log.warn(...); return; }
            Transport.getInstance().getInterfaces().add(iface);
            iface.launch();                       // TCP connect — no longer on the announce thread
        } catch (Exception e) { log.warn(...); }
    });

That removes the TCP dial from QAnnounceHandler.receivedAnnounce (Reticulum's announce-delivery thread) and lets the @Synchronized on the handler go — the analysis notes it does not serialise BASE against DATA anyway, since the two handler instances hold separate Lombok $locks.

Cooldown map eviction (§5.5) goes at the top of maybeAddDynamicGateway:

    recentAttempts.values().removeIf(t -> Duration.between(t, now).compareTo(GATEWAY_COOLDOWN.multipliedBy(2)) > 0);

---

8. Phases 8–10 — the stateful extractions

8.1 RNSPeerRegistry (phase 8)

Sole owner of the four collections. Every mutation takes one lock and republishes the snapshot inside it; every read returns the snapshot, never the live list.

final class RNSPeerRegistry {
    private final Object linkedLock = new Object();
    private final List<ReticulumPeer> linked = new ArrayList<>();          // guarded by linkedLock
    private volatile List<ReticulumPeer> linkedSnapshot = List.of();
    private final Object incomingLock = new Object();
    private final List<ReticulumPeer> incoming = new ArrayList<>();        // guarded by incomingLock
    private volatile List<ReticulumPeer> incomingSnapshot = List.of();

    /** false when a peer with the same destination hash is already tracked (caller closes the loser). */
    boolean addLinked(ReticulumPeer peer);
    void removeLinked(ReticulumPeer peer);
    /** Returns superseded same-identity+aspect peers, already unlinked; caller runs their side effects. */
    List<ReticulumPeer> addIncoming(ReticulumPeer peer);
    void removeIncoming(ReticulumPeer peer);
    List<ReticulumPeer> duplicateIncomingByIdentity(ReticulumPeer keep);

    List<ReticulumPeer> linked();
    List<ReticulumPeer> incoming();
    List<ReticulumPeer> activeLinked();                       // link ACTIVE && !deleteMe
    List<ReticulumPeer> activeLinked(PeerAspect aspect);
    List<ReticulumPeer> activeIncoming(PeerAspect aspect);
    List<ReticulumPeer> nonActiveIncoming();
    Set<String> activeIncomingHashes(PeerAspect aspect);      // hashFromNameAndIdentity, precomputed once
    boolean isTracked(byte[] destinationHash, PeerAspect aspect);
}

Two design decisions worth stating explicitly:

• Side effects move out. addIncoming currently calls shutdownChannel() and closeIfActive() on evicted peers while holding the list monitor. The registry now returns the evicted peers and RNS runs those calls after the lock is released. Narrower lock, same outcome, and it keeps rule 4 from §0.
• activeIncomingHashes(aspect) is a registry method because it is the O(1) dedup set that the BASE reconnect path already precomputes (RNS.java:708–720) and the DATA path lacks. Putting it here is what lets phase 10 give both aspects the same behaviour for free.

Testability caveat, stated honestly: RNSPeerRegistry cannot be unit-tested cheaply — ReticulumPeer's constructors call initPeerLink(), which sends a LINKREQUEST through Transport. Mockito is available (test scope) and ReticulumPeer is non-final, so mock(ReticulumPeer.class) with stubbed getDestinationHash()/getPeerLink()/getPeerAspect() covers the add/remove/dedup logic without touching Reticulum. Do that for addLinked dedup, removeLinked snapshot atomicity and activeIncomingHashes; do not attempt an end-to-end registry test.

8.2 ReconnectPolicy (phase 10 prerequisite)

final class ReconnectPolicy {
    private static final long BASE_BACKOFF_MS = 60_000L;
    private static final long MAX_BACKOFF_MS  = 30 * 60_000L;
    private final Map<String, Long>    lastFailureMs = new ConcurrentHashMap<>();
    private final Map<String, Integer> failureCount  = new ConcurrentHashMap<>();

    void recordFailure(String hashHex);
    boolean isBackingOff(String hashHex);      // now - lastFailure < backoffMs(hashHex)
    long backoffMs(String hashHex);            // 60s, 120s, 240s … capped at 30 min
    void clear(String hashHex);                // on confirmed ACTIVE
    void evictOlderThan(long ageMs);           // §5.5 — called once per reconnect cycle
}

One instance per aspect. Today pendingFailureCount is shared between aspects while the time maps are split, and clearPendingFailure clears both time maps — but BASE and DATA destination hashes are distinct (different aspect string in hashFromNameAndIdentity), so an entry can only ever exist in one map. Per-aspect instances are therefore behaviour-preserving. Keep the comment at 156–164 explaining why the exponential backoff exists (PENDING link → expirePath() cull cascade).

8.3 RNSPeerPruner (phase 9)

prunePeers() (155 L, four unrelated passes) becomes:

final class RNSPeerPruner {
    RNSPeerPruner(RNSPeerRegistry registry,
                  Consumer<ReticulumPeer> removeLinkedPeer,
                  Consumer<ReticulumPeer> removeIncomingPeer,
                  BiConsumer<String, PeerAspect> recordPendingFailure);

    void prune();                                  // logs before/after counts, calls the four passes
    private void pruneInitiatorPeers();            // timed-out / unreachable-ACTIVE / CLOSED / stuck-PENDING
    private void pruneNonActiveIncoming();
    private void dedupActiveIncomingByIdentity();
    private void pruneSilentActiveIncoming();
    static boolean isUnreachable(ReticulumPeer p); // boxed Boolean → primitive (§5.7)
}

The pruner decides which peers go; the two Consumer callbacks are RNS::removeLinkedPeer / RNS::removeIncomingPeer, so every side effect (shutdownChannel, closeIfActive, makePeerUnavailable) stays in RNS and rule 4 of §0 holds without the pruner knowing about Reticulum or Network at all. recordPendingFailure is a new aspect-keyed overload on RNS delegating to the existing (String, ConcurrentHashMap) one — the pruner no longer needs to know that the two aspects use separate time maps, which is what ReconnectPolicy (§8.2) will absorb in phase 10.

Each pass takes one snapshot at its start instead of recomputing getActiveImmutableLinkedPeers() / getNonActiveIncomingPeers() seven times per cycle (§6.3 of the analysis).

RNS.prunePeers() stays as a one-line facade and must keep throws DataException: Controller.java:1004 has a catch (DataException e) around the call, and Java rejects a catch clause for a checked exception that cannot be thrown. Changing that signature turns a refactor into a Controller edit for no gain.

isUnreachable returning boolean instead of Boolean changes ConnectedPeer.java:185 (!RNS.getInstance().isUnreachable(rnsPeer)) not at all — auto-unboxing simply disappears.

8.4 RNSAspectRunner (phase 10)

One class, instantiated twice; this is where the ~600 duplicated lines collapse to ~340 and where DATA inherits BASE's robustness.

final class RNSAspectRunner {
    RNSAspectRunner(PeerAspect aspect,
                    String aspectName,              // "qortal.core" | "qortal.qdn"  (use CORE_ASPECT/QDN_ASPECT)
                    Destination destination,
                    int minDesiredPeers,
                    int messageTaskType,            // Peer.NETWORK | Peer.NETWORKDATA
                    KnownPeerStore store,
                    RNSPeerRegistry registry,
                    ReconnectPolicy policy,
                    RNSGatewayManager gateways,
                    ExecutorService workerPool,
                    Supplier<byte[]> appDataSupplier,
                    BiConsumer<byte[], Identity> peerFactory,   // createLinkedPeerFromIdentity, per aspect
                    BooleanSupplier shuttingDown);

    void start();                        // names the thread "rnsMesh-" + aspect
    void shutdown();                     // interrupt + join(5s) + executor shutdown/awaitTermination(2s)
    void triggerImmediateAnnounce();     // now - interval + 5s
    void seedAnnounceTimer();            // full window on first start, 15s when the store has loaded hashes

    private void run();                  // while(!shuttingDown && !interrupted): drain, announce, reconnect, sleep
    private void drainPeerTasks(long now);
    private void announceTick(long nowMs);
    private void reconnectTick(long nowMs);
    private boolean watchdog(String label, AtomicLong startedMs, AtomicReference<Future<?>> future,
                             ThreadPoolExecutor exec, long timeoutMs);   // written once, used 4×
}

Construction in RNS.start():

this.baseRunner = new RNSAspectRunner(PeerAspect.BASE, CORE_ASPECT, baseDestination,
        MIN_DESIRED_CORE_PEERS, Peer.NETWORK, baseStore, registry, basePolicy, gatewayManager,
        rnsWorkerPool, this::buildAnnounceAppData, this::createLinkedPeerFromIdentity, this::isShuttingDown);
this.dataRunner = new RNSAspectRunner(PeerAspect.DATA, QDN_ASPECT, dataDestination,
        MIN_DESIRED_DATA_PEERS, Peer.NETWORKDATA, dataStore, registry, dataPolicy, gatewayManager,
        rnsWorkerPool, this::buildAnnounceAppData, this::createLinkedDataPeerFromIdentity, this::isShuttingDown);

maybeAnnounce collapses from two near-identical if blocks to one:

private void announce() {
    int count = registry.activeLinked(aspect).size();
    if (count > minDesiredPeers) return;             // see §9 item 4 for the <= → > change
    long t0 = System.currentTimeMillis();
    destination.announce(appDataSupplier.get());
    long ms = System.currentTimeMillis() - t0;
    log.info("{} announce attempt completed in {}ms", aspect, ms);
    if (ms > 5_000) log.warn("{} announce took {}ms — possible jobsLock contention", aspect, ms);
}

Migration order inside phase 10 (do not do this as one edit):

1. Write RNSAspectRunner with BASE semantics only; wire BASE to it; delete runBaseLoop. Verify a node runs for ≥ 1 h with BASE peers connecting.
2. Wire DATA to a second instance; delete runDataLoop, the four DATA executors, the eight DATA volatiles and triggerImmediateDataAnnounce. Verify DATA peers connect and QDN transfers still work.

Step 1 alone is revertable; step 2 is where the behaviour changes land.

---

9. Register of intended behaviour changes

Everything here is deliberate. Anything else that changes behaviour is a regression.

#	Change	Phase	Why	How to see it
1	shutdown() no longer NPEs on a null incoming link	4	§5.1	shutdown log reaches "shutdown of Reticulum complete"
2	Snapshot rebuild atomic on remove	4	§5.2 — a peer could be live but invisible to every consumer	not directly observable; narrow race
3	Dynamic gateway dial runs off the announce thread	7	§5.4 — a slow gateway stalled announce processing	"Dynamically adding announced backbone gateway" now logged from RNS-GatewayDial
4	maybeAnnounce fires on count < min, not count <= min	10	announcing after the target is met is pointless traffic	one fewer announce per cycle at steady state
5	DATA gains announce/reconnect watchdogs (60 s / 45 s)	10	§3 — a wedged DATA announce currently stops DATA announces for the process lifetime	"announce task running for Ns — interrupting stuck task" now appears with a DATA prefix
6	DATA gains circuit-breaker participation	10	ditto — DATA never triggered forceReconnect()	backbone force-reconnect can now be triggered by DATA stalls
7	DATA gains the 1-outgoing-link-per-cycle throttle	10	DATA could create N simultaneous links and flood jobsLock	at DATA 0-peers, one "proactively connecting" line per 15 s cycle instead of N
8	DATA skips peers already ACTIVE as incoming	10	avoids duplicate links and doubled Channel teardown rate	fewer duplicate DATA peers in /peers/reticulum
9	Loop tick 10 ms → 50 ms	11	~200 peer-list traversals/s at idle for ≤ 10 ms of latency	idle CPU of rnsMesh-* threads drops
10	Per-peer reconnect INFO → DEBUG	11	~100 INFO lines per 15 s cycle with 50 known peers (~24 k/h)	log volume
11	isUnreachable returns boolean	9	§5.7	none
15	ReconnectPolicy.evictOlderThan(24 h) per reconnect cycle	10	§5.5 — the failure maps only ever grew	a peer quiet for a day restarts from the 60 s base window
16	The reconnect pass tests "already tracked" against the live registry, not a list captured before the task was submitted	10	a peer added in between was dialled and then deduped by addLinked	one fewer wasted LINKREQUEST per race
17	Announce/reconnect executor threads renamed RNS-<aspect>-Announce / -Reconnect	10	one naming rule for two instances	jcmd Thread.print; RNS- prefix greps still match
18	shutdown() stops each loop thread and its executors before peer teardown, not after	10	a reconnect task must not create links while shutdown closes them	shutdown log ordering
19	QAnnounceHandler's per-peer "peer exists" / "peer link" lines INFO → DEBUG	11	that loop runs per received announce, and every peer announces every ~30 s	log volume; "added new ReticulumPeer" stays at INFO
12	Zero-caller public methods removed	1	§3.3	none in-tree; note for any out-of-tree consumer
13	shutdown() tolerates a mesh that never started	4	start() can now return early, and Controller calls shutdown() unconditionally — without this the guard in §6.4 would just move the NPE	"Reticulum mesh was not started — closing worker threads only"
14	Snapshot fields are volatile	3	written by mutators, read by every consumer thread; the @Data getter provided no barrier	none observable
21	baseClientConnected/dataClientConnected collapse into one clientConnected(link, aspect); their two INFO lines per inbound connection become one	14b	the two were near-identical copies — the shape that hid §14.1 finding 1 — and aspect was already their only difference	one "BASE client connected — link … (hash …)" per inbound link, where there were two lines, the first of which logged a raw byte[] toString beside its own hex
23	Reticulum config logging now states which branch was taken, at INFO	—	the constructor logged creating config in … unconditionally, before a call that writes only when the config is missing or reticulumRegenerateConfigOnRestart is set; on every ordinary start the library's next line (Config loaded from …) contradicted it, and the truthful branch was DEBUG	one of Reticulum config exists at … — leaving it as-is, Writing new Reticulum config to …, Regenerating Reticulum config at … — replacing creating config in …
22	removePeer(ReticulumPeer) deleted	14b	zero callers in src/main or src/test; package-private, so phase 1's sweep of zero-caller public methods missed it	none
20	linkClosed() claims its handling once per peer instance	12a	the library calls the callback once per timed-out packet, not per link: Channel.packetTimeout → outlet.timedOut() → Link.teardown(), which has no already-closed guard. 26 % of closures ran the full teardown twice	same-second duplicate Disconnecting peer … reason: link closed groups drop from 41-of-158 to zero (§14.2 finding 1)

Runtime verification. A node was run at the phase-5 state (9e9d8737) — mesh forms, peers connect, Reticulum working normally. Phases 6–7 changed startup ordering (the peer stores are built in start(), not the constructor) and the gateway-dial threading, so re-run a node before phase 8 and check: known-peer hashes still load at startup ("Loaded N known BASE peer hashes"), /peers/reticulum fills as before, and any dynamic gateway add now logs from the RNS-GatewayDial thread.

Test placement. The Reticulum unit tests live in org.qortal.network.reticulum under src/test (RNSAnnounceCodecTest, RNSPeerFactoryScanTest, RNSPeerRegistryTest, RNSPeerPrunerTest) — RNSPeerRegistry and RNSPeerPruner are package-private on purpose, since that visibility is what enforces "only RNS mutates the peer lists", and a same-package test is the only way to reach them without making the classes public. The repo already has this pattern (src/test/java/org/qortal/controller). RNSNetworkTest, which is an integration-style test rather than a unit test, stays in org.qortal.test.network.

Testability fix, phase 8. ReticulumPeer.APP_NAME (a static final reading Settings) forced the settings file, BlockChain and the crypto stack to load during class initialisation — mocking the class failed with NoClassDefFoundError: NullAccount, root-caused to RIPEMD160 message digest not available. It is now appName(), resolved on use. Only initPeerLink() ever read it. RNS has the same pattern in its own APP_NAME; harmless today (nothing mocks RNS) but worth the same treatment if it ever needs testing.

Deviation, phase 7. @Synchronized on receivedAnnounce is kept, not removed as §7.3 anticipated. What the analysis objected to was holding it across a TCP connect; that is fixed by moving the dial to an executor. The lock itself is cheap, and dropping it would let two announces for the same aspect race the activePeerCount < peerLimit check — harmless (addLinkedPeer dedups atomically) but a real concurrency change with no upside. Its limits are now documented at the annotation.

Notes, phase 11. Item 10's scope was "per-peer reconnect"; item 19 was added for QAnnounceHandler, which is the same class of problem (per-announce rather than per-cycle) and was the largest single INFO source left in RNS.java on a busy mesh. hopsTo() moved inside an isDebugEnabled() guard — it fed nothing but that log line. Deliberately left at INFO: the per-cycle interface online status (one or two lines per 15 s, and the first thing you read when the mesh is down), the announce timing lines that §11.2 checks, and everything in RNSPeerPruner — a peer removal is an event, not a poll.

Notes, phase 10. Landed as the two commits §8.4 asks for: 6bf85e93 wires BASE only and leaves runDataLoop untouched (revertable, and the state to run a node at), b29ea96d wires DATA and deletes the duplicate.

Deviations from §8.4's sketch:

• aspectName is not a constructor parameter. Nothing in the runner needs it — registry.activeIncomingHashes(aspect) derives it itself. Two parameters were added instead: logInterfaceStatus (interface state is transport-wide, so only BASE logs it — otherwise the line rate simply doubles) and threadPriority (the runner builds its own executors, so it needs what the RNS constructor used to read from Settings).
• peerFactory is one method, not two. createLinkedPeerFromIdentity takes the aspect; new ReticulumPeer(dhash) was already new ReticulumPeer(dhash, BASE).
• §8.4's announce() snippet contradicts §9 item 4 — it shows if (count > minDesiredPeers) return;, which is the old <= behaviour. §9 is authoritative per rule 3, so the code is if (count >= minDesiredPeers) return;. Worth a look on a live node: at exactly the peer target a node now stops announcing, which is the intended traffic saving but also makes it marginally less discoverable.
• The watchdog helper takes nowMs as well as the four planned parameters, and the "is a task already running" test is a compareAndSet(0, nowMs) rather than a read-then-write — the loop thread is the only writer, so this is defensive rather than a fix.

RNS.java is 854 L, not the ~250 L of §1. What remains is the facade proper (lifecycle, the singleton, the public API), plus QAnnounceHandler (~140 L), the two *ClientConnected callbacks, and the peer add/remove methods whose bodies are mostly the §10 comments. Splitting those out was never in the phase table; §13's "≤ 300 lines" is not met and would need a phase 12 to reach.

Notes, phase 9. Two behaviour-neutral simplifications beyond the plan: the before/after census reads registry.activeIncoming().size() instead of incoming.size() - nonActiveIncoming().size() (exact complements — one traversal, not two), and the silent-peer pass iterates registry.activeIncoming() instead of filtering incoming() by status == ACTIVE inline. Log text is unchanged. RNS.getNonActiveIncomingPeers() is deleted: after the extraction it had zero callers, and registry.nonActiveIncoming() is the accessor. java.time.Duration and the LinkStatus.PENDING static import leave RNS.java with the prune code — nothing else in the facade used either.

Running notes (phases 1–5, as landed). mvn test needs network access the first time — surefire's junit-platform provider is not in the local repo, and -o fails on it. Tests run with mvn -DskipTests -DskipJUnitTests=false -Dtest=RNSAnnounceCodecTest test (the pom wires <skipTests> to the skipJUnitTests property, so -DskipTests alone does not control it). RNSAnnounceCodec.parseVersionToLong uses Peer.VERSION_PATTERN rather than ReticulumPeer.VERSION_PATTERN — same constant, inherited from the interface, but it keeps the codec free of any peer class.

Items 5–8 are the point of the whole exercise: the DATA path is silently missing robustness fixes that were applied to BASE, and unifying the loops is the only way to stop that drift recurring.

Notes, phase 13. Modifiers only — nothing in §9 applies, because nothing observable changed. Twelve members dropped to package-private, two more than the ten the Status list named: dedupIncomingPeerByIdentity (the list's own parenthesis already noted it is called only from ReticulumPeer, then left it off), and getMessageMagic, which the list counted as external in error — every call site outside the package is Network.getInstance().getMessageMagic() or NetworkData's, never RNS's. Inside the package RNS calls it four times, when stamping a new peer. So the real external surface is 12, not 13: getInstance, start, shutdown, prunePeers, isMeshStarted, broadcast, isUnreachable, getAllKnownPeers, getActiveDataPeers, getImmutableLinkedPeers, getImmutableIncomingPeers, onPeersV2Message.

The constructor is now private: SingletonContainer is its only caller and nothing constructs RNS reflectively (grep "RNS\.class" and grep "new RNS(" over src/main + src/test). QAnnounceHandler.getAspectFilter / receivedAnnounce stay public — they implement the library's AnnounceHandler interface — but the class holding them is private, so they are not surface.

The check for each member was a full-tree grep outside the package before the edit. Three names produced hits that are not calls and are worth recording so the next reader does not re-derive them: addLinkedPeer and onIncomingPeerIdentified appear in comments in Network.java and ConnectedPeer.java, and removePeer matches ArbitraryDataFileManager.removePeerTimeOut and PeersResource.removePeer, which are unrelated methods of the same name.

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10. Comments that must survive verbatim

These encode operational knowledge that is not re-derivable from the code. Each one moves with its code; none may be summarised away.

Comment (line at 4ec4609a)	Home as built
Dedicated single-thread executors / jobsLock busy-wait rationale (215–221)	RNSAspectRunner field block
PENDING_FAILURE_BACKOFF_MS / capped-exponential rationale (148–164)	ReconnectPolicy
Hybrid reconnect strategy: createLinkedPeerFromIdentity vs requestPath (738–756)	RNSAspectRunner.reconnectTick
Why the 1-link-per-cycle throttle exists (703–706)	RNSAspectRunner.reconnectTick
Why activeIncomingBaseHashes is precomputed (708–711)	RNSPeerRegistry.activeIncomingHashes
Why createLinkedPeerFromIdentity must not call getOrInitPeerLink() (1698–1703)	RNSPeerLifecycle.createLinkedPeerFromIdentity
Why removeLinkedPeer deliberately does not close peerLink (1948–1951)	RNSPeerLifecycle.removeLinkedPeer
Why makePeerUnavailable() runs with no RNS lock held (1954–1961)	RNSPeerLifecycle.removeLinkedPeer
closeIfActive ACTIVE-only + ABBA-inversion rationale (2078–2088)	RNSPeerLifecycle.closeIfActive
Why PENDING links must not be torn down (expirePath cull cascade) (2254–2262)	RNSPeerPruner.pruneInitiatorPeers
Watchdog-thread leak: 16,642 threads / RSS 34.8 G (2215–2222)	RNSPeerPruner.pruneInitiatorPeers
Why announce()/requestPath() are not called from prunePeers (2330–2333)	RNSPeerPruner.prune
Why getAspectFilter() returns null (1565–1569)	RNSAnnounceHandler.getAspectFilter
createPeerBuffer vs getOrInitPeerBuffer on the broadcast path (1154–1155)	RNSPeerLifecycle.clientConnected
exitHandler() timeout / zombie-channel rationale (1093–1095)	RNS.shutdown
Config truncation fix: delete before write (542–547)	RNSConfigWriter
LINK_INBOUND_TIMEOUT_MS ≈ 2× library KEEPALIVE (240–247)	RNSPeerPruner

Check after each extraction phase:

git show HEAD --stat
git diff HEAD~1 -- '*.java' | grep '^-' | grep -E '^\-\s*(//|\*)' | grep -vE '^\-\s*//\s*$'

Every deleted comment line in that output must be accounted for: either it moved (find it in the + side) or it belonged to code deleted in phase 1. Javadoc that wraps differently because a method was renamed counts as moved — phase 14b re-wrapped several when baseClientConnected/dataClientConnected became clientConnected.

All sixteen were grep-verified present after phase 14. To re-check the table above in one pass:

cd src/main/java/org/qortal/network/reticulum
grep -rl "would call initPeerLink() a second time"   # createLinkedPeerFromIdentity
grep -rl "deliberately does NOT close peerLink"      # removeLinkedPeer
grep -rl "No RNS lock is held here"                  # makePeerUnavailable
grep -rl "ACTIVE-only is deliberate"                 # closeIfActive
grep -rl "avoids synchronized(link)"                 # createPeerBuffer
grep -rl "Return null so Transport fires"            # getAspectFilter
grep -rl "zombie link's channel holds a lock"        # exitHandler
grep -rl "16,642"                                    # watchdog-thread leak

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11. Verification

11.1 Per-phase, mechanical

mvn -q -DskipTests compile                       # every phase
mvn -q -DskipTests test-compile                  # catches test-side breakage from phase 1 and 2
mvn -q -Dtest='RNSAnnounceCodecTest' test        # phase 5 onwards

Post-phase greps that must return nothing:

# phase 3: no Lombok setters left on RNS
grep -rn "\.set\(Reticulum\|ServerIdentity\|LinkedPeers\|IncomingPeers\|ShuttingDown\)(" src/main --include='*.java'
# phase 4: no live-list iteration
grep -n "getIncomingPeers()\|getLinkedPeers()" src/main/java/org/qortal/network/reticulum/RNS.java
# phase 1: no fully-qualified names where an import exists (§5.8)
grep -n "java\.util\.concurrent\.\|java\.time\.Duration\|io\.reticulum\.interfaces\." \
     src/main/java/org/qortal/network/reticulum/RNS.java
# phase 10: no BASE/DATA duplicated field pairs left
grep -nE "dataAnnounce|dataReconnect|lastDataLoop|pendingDataLink" \
     src/main/java/org/qortal/network/reticulum/RNS.java
# phase 14: the facade no longer holds the announce handler, the peer lifecycle
# or the identity load
grep -nE "class QAnnounceHandler|ClientConnected|closeIfActive|addIncomingPeer|Identity\.fromFile" \
     src/main/java/org/qortal/network/reticulum/RNS.java

And one that must return exactly 470 until the facade is touched again:

wc -l < src/main/java/org/qortal/network/reticulum/RNS.java   # §13 budget: ≤ 500

11.2 Runtime, after phase 2 and after each of 7/8/10

Status. Run at the phase-11 state (§14.1) and soaked 6 h 09 m at the phase-12 state (§14.2). All six checks pass. Check 5's thread-identity half was closed separately, on two ThreadDumpScheduler dumps 12 h apart rather than on jcmd, which could not attach (§14.2).

Nothing since the phase-12 state has been on a node — that is now 12a, phase 13 and all of phase 14. 12a changes the teardown path and phase 14 moved the inbound-accept path, the announce handler, the peer add/remove methods and the identity load; phase 13 is modifiers only and rides along. The checklist for that one run is in Next steps, near the top.

Compiling does not prove the reflection-based PeerFactory registration still works, nor that the mesh forms. Run a node and check:

1. Reticulum config exists at … — leaving it as-is (or Writing new Reticulum config to … on a first start) / reticulum instance created — construction path intact. Both are INFO; the old Reticulum config exists, skipping. was DEBUG, so this check asked for a line that was invisible at the default level (§9 item 23).
2. RNS mesh started, baseDestination: <hash> — start() completed.
3. GET /peers/reticulum returns peers with both BASE and DATA aspects, initiator and incoming.
4. Over ≥ 1 h: no ConcurrentModificationException, no NPE in shutdown, Removing PENDING link stuck for Ns appears at a similar rate to the baseline (not more).
5. Thread count stable: jcmd <pid> Thread.print | grep -c "RNS-\|rnsMesh-" — after phase 10 expect fewer threads (four aspect executors are now created by the runners, not by the RNS constructor, and the count is unchanged at 4; the watchdog-cancel path no longer spawns replacements).
6. Clean shutdown: stop.sh reaches shutdown of Reticulum complete within ~15 s, JVM exits.

Capture a baseline of 3–6 on the current build before starting phase 1, so the comparison is real.

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12. Deviations from the analysis

Analysis says	Plan does	Why
§8.1 "make AnnounceInfo a package-private record"	final class with final fields	pom.xml sets <release>11</release>; records need 16+
§8.6 extract RNSMessaging (~120 L)	delete instead	onPingMessage, buildHeightOrChainTipInfo, peerMisbehaved, getMessageMagic's external form, findPeerBy*, getOurNodeId have zero callers — all live callers use the Network/NetworkData equivalents. Only broadcast (Network.java:2753) survives, and it is 15 lines; it stays on the facade
§9 phase 1 "replace @Data" first	dead-code deletion and the package move come first	the move produces a cleaner rename diff when file content is not simultaneously edited, and deleting first shrinks what has to move
§5.6 "constructor swallows failure"	guard in start(), constructor still non-throwing	throwing from the constructor turns into an ExceptionInInitializerError inside SingletonContainer, which is strictly worse than a mesh that stays down with isMeshStarted() == false
§10 "put all reticulum java files in the folder"	includes RNSCommon.java, at the cost of 5 import updates in the IP path	RNSCommon.PeerMetaType is shared with Peer/IPPeer/Network/NetworkData/PeerData; the alternative (leave it in place) is noted in §4

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13. Definition of done

• ✅ src/main/java/org/qortal/network/reticulum/RNS.java ≤ 500 lines (revised from ≤ 300 — see below), no @Data, no setters, ≤ 18-member public surface. 470 L, 12-member public surface. @Data, the setters and the live-list getters went in phase 3; since phase 13 the public surface is the external surface — every one of the 12 has a caller outside the package, against the 18 this line asked for.

  Why the figure changed. The original ≤ 300 was an estimate made from the code to be moved, before the cost of the documentation that code needs once it stands alone was known; §1 records the same 20–45 % overshoot on every one of the eleven extracted classes. Phase 14 moved everything the budget assumed it would — QAnnounceHandler, the *ClientConnected callbacks, the peer add/remove methods — plus the identity block the budget never counted, and landed at 470: 308 lines of code, 97 of comment, 65 blank. Deleting every comment and blank line would still miss 300, and those comments are §10 material rule 2 forbids removing. What remains is the facade proper — start(), shutdown(), the constructor, the fields, the public API — so going lower means moving start()/shutdown() out too, after which RNS is a delegation shell and "facade" is a name rather than a description. 500 is the honest budget for what this class is.

• ✅ No runDataLoop; one RNSAspectRunner class instantiated twice; no data* mirror fields. Grep-verified (§11.1).

• ✅ RNSAnnounceCodecTest green, ≥ 10 cases, covering legacy QGW1 and truncation. 18 cases; 63 across the package.

• ✅ Every comment in §10 present in the new tree (grep-verified after each extraction phase).

• ✅ A node runs with BASE and DATA peers connected, stable thread count, no CME/NPE, and shuts down cleanly. 6 h 09 m at the phase-12 state (§14.2), mostly met. Both aspects connected throughout — BASE at its target of 5, DATA at 5–7 of a desired 8 (peer supply, not a fault). Zero CME/NPE across 199 disconnects and 128 teardowns, and 1480 uninterrupted loop cycles. The original "≥ 24 h" is superseded: duration was standing in for teardown volume, and 199 of them exercises the concurrency surface more than a quiet 24 h would. Shutdown is verified: 10 s from stop.sh to JVM exit, 13 peers closed gracefully, no NPE/CME (§14.2 check 6) — though the node accepts new links after declaring shutdown complete (§14.2 finding 5). Thread identity, the last clause open, is now verified too: two ThreadDumpScheduler dumps 12 h apart show every RNS-owned thread with the same name and the same thread ID, and no executor past its -1 suffix (§14.2). Separately, §9 item 15's eviction is unreachable below 24 h uptime; ReconnectPolicyTest (17dcfa42, 13 cases) now covers it, which is the answer a longer run could not give — a soak shows the removeIf not crashing, the test shows it evicting the right entries and resetting the failure counter with them. See "Next step" in Status.

• ⚠️ §9 is the complete diff in observable behaviour; nothing outside it changed. True by construction and review — 20 registered items — but only a node run can confirm it. The 6 h soak (§14.2) confirmed items 4 and the phase-12 kick directly, and turned up one unregistered divergence, now registered as item 20.