magnetar/SPEC.md

Magnetar v1.0 --- Normative specification

This document is the normative specification of the two primitives shipped by luxfi/magnetar v1.0.

Companion documents:

• README.md --- introduction and headline tests.
• THBS-SPEC.md --- detailed THBS-SE construction spec.
• DEPLOYMENT-RUNBOOK.md --- operator runbook.
• BLOCKERS.md --- v1.1 roadmap.

1. Primitives

Magnetar v1.0 ships TWO primitives. Both produce FIPS 205 wire bytes that an unmodified verifier accepts.

1.0 Threshold SLH-DSA status (normative)

Magnetar does NOT claim an efficient oracle-respecting thresholdization of SLH-DSA. Known theoretical barriers for extractable hash-based signatures (Kondi-Kumar-Vanegas, MPTS '26) imply that, in the no-dealer / no-preprocessing setting a public, leaderless, permissionless chain requires, threshold signing CANNOT be achieved by merely making black-box use of the random-oracle / hash function. A true threshold SLH-DSA signer would have to evaluate the FIPS 205 signing algorithm inside an active-secure MPC -- including the SHAKE/SHA-2/Keccak computations that derive R, the FORS secrets, the WOTS+ chains, and the authentication paths -- which is non-black-box use of the hash: research-grade and expected to be expensive (the T-SLH-DSA-MPC research track).

Production Magnetar therefore implements threshold CERTIFICATION over INDEPENDENT FIPS 205 SLH-DSA signatures -- never threshold signing:

• Permissionless (production default): the weighted quorum certificate in luxfi/consensus (protocol/quasar/quorum_cert.go). A quorum-weight subset of the validator set sign independently (1.1 below); a verifier checks the quorum predicate directly, or via a post-quantum STARK/FRI proof of those verifications (P3Q, luxfi/p3q). No key material is shared, reconstructed, or combined.
• Trusted-hardware / custody (opt-in production): the TEE-attested combiner pool -- honest trust-relocation (a host enters the TCB), NOT MPC. See BLOCKERS.md.
• THBS-SE (1.2): RESEARCH-ONLY. It reconstructs the FIPS 205 master at the public combiner every signature; it MUST NOT be presented as a no-reconstruction production threshold. See BLOCKERS.md::MAGNETAR-STRICT-ATOM (OPEN).

1.1 Per-validator standalone (public-BFT primary)

API at ref/go/pkg/magnetar/standalone.go:

PerValidatorKeypair(params, rng) -> (sk, pk, error)
ValidatorSign(sk, rng, message)  -> ([]byte, error)
ValidatorBatchVerify(params, pubs, msgs, sigs) -> ([]bool, error)
BuildAggregateCert(params, signers, pubKeys, sigs) -> (*ValidatorAggregateCert, error)
VerifyAggregateCert(cert, message, knownValidators) -> (count, error)

Semantics:

• Each validator runs PerValidatorKeypair ONCE on its own host with its own RNG; persists (sk_i, pk_i); registers pk_i in the validator-set commitment.
• To sign message m: validator i computes sigma_i = ValidatorSign(sk_i, nil, m). Output is the raw FIPS 205 signature bytes; deterministic when rng is nil (FIPS 205 SignDeterministic).
• The consensus layer collects N (sigma_i, pk_i, ValidatorID_i) triples into a ValidatorAggregateCert via BuildAggregateCert.
• VerifyAggregateCert returns the COUNT of valid signers. The quorum policy decision (count >= threshold) lives at the CONSUMER, NOT in the primitive.

Trust model:

• No DKG, no shared seed, no aggregator-in-TCB.
• Per-validator slashing is attributable.
• A post-quantum P3Q STARK/FRI proof (luxfi/p3q) compresses the N independent signatures plus the weighted-quorum predicate into one succinct quorum certificate; the rollup is a separate primitive (luxfi/consensus quorum_cert + luxfi/p3q). The earlier Groth16/bn254 rollup is classical (pairing-based) and is superseded for PQ finality.

1.2 THBS-SE (permissionless threshold)

API at ref/go/pkg/magnetar/thbsse.go:

NewThbsSeKey(params, threshold, committee, rng) -> (*ThbsSeKey, error)
ThbsSeRound1(params, share, binding, msg, guard, rng) -> (r1, r2, error)
Combine(input ThbsSeCombineInput) -> (*Signature, []ThbsSeShareEvidence, error)
NewThbsSeSlotGuard() -> *ThbsSeSlotGuard
VerifyThbsSeEvidence(params, ev, msgPrior, msgNew, bindingPrior, bindingNew) -> bool
VerifyThbsSeShareEvidence(params, ev, binding, msg) -> bool

Semantics: see THBS-SPEC.md for the full construction. Highlights:

• t-of-n committee with n > t over-selection.
• Slot binding flows into the cSHAKE256 commit transcript AND into the FIPS 205 ctx string.
• PUBLIC COMBINER role; anyone with the public ThbsSeKey, the slot binding, the message, and >= t valid Round-1/Round-2 pairs can produce the FIPS 205 signature.
• Equivocation and malformed-share evidence are wire-shaped typed blobs; pure-function third-party verifiers.

2. Parameter sets

Per FIPS 205 sec 10.1 Table 2:

Mode	n (WOTS+ msg len)	PK	SK	Sig	Seed
ModeM192s (Magnetar-SHAKE-192s)	24	48	96	16224	96
ModeM192f (Magnetar-SHAKE-192f)	24	48	96	35664	96
ModeM256s (Magnetar-SHAKE-256s)	32	64	128	29792	128

Recommended production target: ModeM192s (smallest signatures at NIST PQ category 3, >=192-bit classical security).

3. Hash domain separation

All cSHAKE calls use function-name "Magnetar" and one of the following customisation tags:

Tag	Purpose	Defined in
MAGNETAR-THBSSE-SHARE-DEAL-V1	Shamir coefficient stream + EvalPointFromID hash	transcript.go
MAGNETAR-THBSSE-SLOT-V1	Slot binding -> 32-byte slot_id; message digest	thbsse.go
MAGNETAR-THBSSE-R1-COMMIT-V1	Round-1 commit D_i; setup transcript	thbsse.go
MAGNETAR-THBSSE-SHARE-MAC-V1	(reserved for share-MAC envelope)	thbsse.go

The protocol-wide domain-separation context is the ASCII string "lux-magnetar-v1" (tagDomainSep).

The FIPS 205 ctx prefix for THBS-SE signatures is "lux-magnetar-thbsse-v1" followed by the 32-byte slot_id; total length 56 bytes, well under the FIPS 205 sec 10.2 limit of 255 bytes.

4. Byte-identity claims

4.1 Per-validator standalone

TestMagnetar_Wire_FIPS205Verifiable pins:

For any (sk, message) pair: stripping the canonical 11-byte MAGS wire header from MarshalBinary(ValidatorSign(sk, nil, message)) recovers the unmodified FIPS 205 bytes that cloudflare/circl/sign/slhdsa.Verify accepts under (sk.Pub, message, nil_ctx).

4.2 THBS-SE

TestThbsSE_Wire_FIPS205Verifiable pins:

For any (key, binding, message) triple and any t valid Round-1/Round-2 pairs: Combine(...) emits a *Signature whose Bytes field, fed DIRECTLY to cloudflare/circl/sign/slhdsa.Verify under (key.PublicKey, message, ctxFromSlot(binding)), is accepted.

Additionally, TestThbsSE_PublicCombiner_Determinism pins that any two disjoint t-sized sub-quora of valid Round-2 reveals produce byte-equal final signatures. The public combiner is a PURE function of its inputs.

5. Slashing evidence wire shape

5.1 Equivocation evidence (ThbsSeEvidence)

type ThbsSeEvidence struct {
    SlotID      [32]byte
    PartyID     NodeID  // [32]byte
    PriorDigest [32]byte
    PriorR1     ThbsSeRound1Msg
    PriorR2     ThbsSeRound2Msg
    NewDigest   [32]byte
    NewR1       ThbsSeRound1Msg
    NewR2       ThbsSeRound2Msg
}

Third-party verifier: VerifyThbsSeEvidence(params, ev, msgPrior, msgNew, bindingPrior, bindingNew) -> bool.

5.2 Malformed-share evidence (ThbsSeShareEvidence)

type ThbsSeShareEvidence struct {
    PartyID    NodeID
    Reason     ThbsSeShareEvidenceReason  // {slot-mismatch, wire-size, commit-mismatch}
    ExpectedD  [32]byte                   // for commit-mismatch
    ObservedD  [32]byte                   // for commit-mismatch
    PartialSig []byte                     // for commit-mismatch / wire-size
}

Third-party verifier: VerifyThbsSeShareEvidence(params, ev, binding, msg) -> bool.

6. Wire codec

Magnetar v1.0 ships canonical MAGS (signature) and MAGG (group key) frames per wire.go:

Signature:                       GroupKey:
  magic(4) = 'M' 'A' 'G' 'S'       magic(4) = 'M' 'A' 'G' 'G'
  version(2) = 0x0001              version(2) = 0x0001
  mode(1)    = {0x01..0x03}        mode(1)    = {0x01..0x03}
  len(4)     = FIPS 205 sig size   len(4)     = FIPS 205 pk size
  payload    = FIPS 205 sigEncode  payload    = FIPS 205 (seed||root)

Magic bytes are distinct from sibling protocols (pulsar PULS/PULG, corona CORS/CORG) so cross-protocol frames fail at the first dispatch. Stripping the 11-byte header recovers the unmodified FIPS 205 bytes any verifier accepts.

7. v1.0 open items

See BLOCKERS.md:

• MAGNETAR-STRICT-ATOM-V11 --- the strict-invariant lift (no seed reconstruction even transiently).
• MAGNETAR-PVSS-DKG-V11 --- the leaderless PVSS-DKG setup variant (v1.0 ships deterministic-dealer reference; production routes through sibling luxfi/threshold DKG).
• MAGNETAR-PROOF-TRACK-V11 --- EasyCrypt + Lean track for the THBS-SE construction shape.
• MAGNETAR-DUDECT-V11 --- v1.1 dudect harness.
• MAGNETAR-EXTERNAL-AUDIT-V11 --- external cryptographer review.