MALTA user-controlled local data runtime

Keep keys and accepted roots on the user's device, authenticate structured relationships with malt-core, and treat gateways or peers as replaceable untrusted data sources.

Research narrative

Technical docs

MALT Core source

Local runtime

The malt CLI and daemon own local trust, keys, UnixFS application behavior, backup/sync orchestration, and verified payload exposure.

MALT Core

The application-neutral malt-core SDK defines canonical relations, roots, commitments, ProofLists, and local verification.

Optional Gateway

Gateways provide Bucket, CAS, proof generation, and managed execution, but cannot promote an observed head or bypass local verification.

Product boundary

Keep user data control local, and make storage and transport replaceable.

MALT is a local data runtime that runs on the user's device. Its daemon is the primary long-running process, while CLI, future GUI, foreground mode, and local APIs share the same application and trust boundaries.

MALT Core authenticates graph-shaped relationships through opaque labels, Prefix and Positional trees, and Root-bound proofs. Payloads may live on local disk, in CAS, behind a Gateway, or in future peer transports; every remote proof and payload CID is checked locally before use.

A Gateway can accelerate execution and provide Bucket/CAS services. It is optional and untrusted: observed heads remain observations, candidate roots remain separate, and only local policy promotes an accepted root.

Root-centric read and ProofList verification flow

Current runtimeThe current implementation provides the malt CLI/daemon, local trust state, Gateway/local/hybrid CAS, backup/sync flows, and authenticated UnixFS mounts.

Current pre-v1 contractsUse explicit opaque labels with malt.authentication/5 and verify each result against the intended root and query.

Filesystem boundaryLinux supports daemon-managed authenticated Bucket mounts with read-only default and explicit write-back; peer networking and non-Linux mount adapters remain future work.