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Test your seller before going live

You can check that your seller serves requests before you fund, register or announce it. Run the seller, a buyer and a small bootstrap node on one machine with no internet connection, then send requests through the buyer as any app would.

You need no ETH, no USDC and no on-chain registration for this test.

What is and isn't isolated​

  • Discovery. The seller and buyer find each other through a bootstrap node you run locally. network.bootstrapNodes adds nodes to the built-in public ones (dht1.antseed.com and dht2.antseed.com). It can't replace them, so a seller started with internet access still announces itself to the public network. Run this test only where there is no internet connection, for example in a Docker container with its network disconnected.
  • Payments. ANTSEED_ENABLE_SETTLEMENT=false turns payments off on both sides, and seller start skips its on-chain checks (registration and gas). Nothing is settled on chain and no USDC moves, although seller logs and seller status still count the requests and what they would have earned.
  • Not tested. Registration, gas, payments and settlement, and whether buyers on the internet can reach your ports. Steps 3 and 6 of Become a provider cover those.

1. Set up while you are still online​

The CLI installs its plugins from npm the first time it needs them, and it can't do that offline. While the machine is still online:

  1. Install the CLI.

  2. Add your provider and services, as in step 4 of Become a provider. The upstream must run on this machine, so use the local-llm plugin with a local model server (for example Ollama with your model already pulled). A hosted API can't be reached offline.

  3. Start a buyer once, so it installs its router and verifier plugins. Use a separate data directory, so the buyer gets its own identity:

    Terminal
    ANTSEED_ENABLE_SETTLEMENT=false antseed --data-dir ~/.antseed-test-buyer buyer start

    When it prints Proxy listening on http://localhost:8377, stop it with Ctrl+C. A buyer doesn't announce anything.

Now disconnect the machine from the internet. For a Docker container, run this on the host:

Terminal
docker network disconnect bridge <container-name>

2. Start a local network​

Each long-running command needs its own terminal.

Start a bootstrap node on a port the seller doesn't use, with its own data directory:

Terminal
antseed --data-dir ~/.antseed-test-bootstrap network bootstrap --port 16881

Point the seller and buyer at it. They share ~/.antseed/config.json:

Terminal
antseed config set network.bootstrapNodes '["127.0.0.1:16881"]'

Start the seller with payments off:

Terminal
ANTSEED_ENABLE_SETTLEMENT=false antseed seller start

It prints Seeding active and your Peer ID. The warning that seller.publicAddress is empty is expected here.

Start the buyer with payments off, pinned to your seller:

Terminal
ANTSEED_ENABLE_SETTLEMENT=false antseed --data-dir ~/.antseed-test-buyer buyer start --peer <your-peer-id>

--peer is needed because a new seller's trust score is below the buyer's default minimum of 60, so the buyer's own routing won't choose it. Without it, requests fail with No policy-allowed peer currently serves model.

3. Send requests​

Your services should be listed, with your peer ID and prices:

Terminal
curl -s http://localhost:8377/v1/models

Send a request to one of them:

Terminal
curl -s http://localhost:8377/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{"model":"<your-service-id>","messages":[{"role":"user","content":"Hello"}]}'

The response comes from your upstream. Add "stream":true to test streaming. Then check that the seller recorded the requests:

Terminal
antseed seller logs

4. Clean up​

Stop the buyer, seller and bootstrap node, then remove the local bootstrap entry from your config:

Terminal
antseed config set network.bootstrapNodes '[]'
rm -rf ~/.antseed-test-buyer ~/.antseed-test-bootstrap

Reconnect to the internet and continue with step 3 of Become a provider.

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