Questions and answers
Frequently asked questions
Ten questions that come up often, answered from the pages of this site. Each answer ends with a link to the page that holds the details.
Nothing here is a live reading of the network. Where an answer depends on a number or a state, it names the command or the page that reads it.
The ten questions
What is Dendra?
Dendra is a public testnet where AI answers are checked on chain instead of trusted. Miners serve open-weight models, other miners re-check a random sample of answers, validators sign the blocks, and nodes verify them.
What do I need to run a miner, and can I join without a GPU?
An NVIDIA GPU mines. Without a GPU, a machine with enough system RAM judges on its CPU and answers the requests it is assigned with the judge model. The floor is named MOE_CPU_MIN_RAM_MB, and bash deploy/hw_probe.sh --judge-floor-mb prints it. Below that RAM the kit refuses the machine and changes nothing.
The system is Ubuntu, Debian, HiveOS or Windows, where the installer sets up WSL 2. The disk floors are MIN_DISK_GB to mine and MIN_DISK_GB_JUDGE for the judge role.
Do I need to open a port or have a wallet?
No port: the miner only opens outbound connections, so a home router is fine. No wallet either. The miner creates its own key and takes its stake from the public faucet. A wallet is only an optional address for season rewards.
The Docker volume dendra-miner_miner-keys holds the miner's identity. Never run docker compose down -v: it deletes that volume, and a new identity needs a new stake.
How it works, on the miner page, and the optional wallet, in the docs
What does a judge do?
The chain re-checks a random sample of answers. It draws a jury of other present miners, and each active judge on it votes. A verdict needs at least audit_min_quorum votes, and the jury excludes the miner under audit. A miner convicted of cheating loses part of its stake.
A miner drawn without an active judge casts no vote. On a machine that can judge, the kit seats the judge by default; bash deploy/testnet-miner/judge.sh off declines the seat on a machine with a GPU.
The judge, on the miner page, and what is checked and what is not, in the docs
How do I check an answer myself?
Every on-chain figure we publish is read from the chain. You need a browser or curl, no account and no wallet. The audit lands after the answer, so look for your job_id in the recent_audits of the public audit feed, or read the job straight from the chain. Its state field says whether a jury upheld the answer, rejected it or never concluded.
If a post contradicts a query, the query wins.
What does the Final Testnet Season pay, and what does not count?
The season pays miners in testnet DNDR for verified work, juror verdicts and proven presence, by a formula published in advance. It pays every seven season days, until 7 November 2026, 23:59 UTC, by the chain's block times. There is no sign-up and no entry test: every running miner takes part.
Only the DNDR the season pays you count. Your wallet balance does not: faucet drips, your stake, the chain's own job pay and transfers between addresses never count.
What counts, on the season page, and how to check the rankings
What happens to my testnet DNDR when mainnet starts?
Each DNDR the season paid you becomes one mainnet DNDR, credited in the mainnet genesis to the address that received it. Mainnet launches after the season, on a permanent chain. Keep the key of the address that received your payments: the same key controls the same address on mainnet.
The chain is resettable on the testnet, and a reset erases balances. The published season rankings are archived before any reset.
How do I update my kit?
Run bash deploy/testnet-miner/miner_health.sh from your clone. You are up to date when the kit version line starts with [ok]. The network publishes the kit it requires and the deadline in network-info.txt: curl -sf https://testnet-api.dendranetwork.com/network-info.txt, lines KIT_MIN and KIT_DEADLINE.
A kit that does not update itself needs the two commands on the update page. HiveOS rigs update through their package.
What is the difference between a node and a validator?
A node syncs the chain and checks every block for itself. It needs no stake and no GPU, and nothing is at risk. A validator is a node that also signs blocks and feeds the random seed behind jury draws. It earns a share of job fees, and its bond answers for downtime and double-signing.
Start with a node and bond once it is synced. Neither declares a kit, so the miner kit deadline does not concern them.
Where do I ask for help?
Ask in #operator-support on the Discord, never in direct messages. Say what you ran and on which system, and paste the last 20 lines of output rather than a screenshot. For a miner, paste the output of bash deploy/testnet-miner/miner_health.sh.
The team never messages you first and never asks for your recovery phrase.