Protocol Walkthrough

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Personal notes to understand the protocol codebase

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`main.go`

Upon running the harmony build, the following logic is triggered:

getHarmonyConfig initializes the HarmonyConfig with the given flags
setupNodeAndRun

Sets the shard schedule based on its respective network (Mainnet, Testnet, etc.)
Assuming the node type is validator, setupStakingNodeAccount is run

setupStakingNodeAccount

Loads BLS keys and set the keys to config
Retrieve the Shard ID statically determined from the consensus key
Ensure the keys are all in the same shard
Append each key to initialAccounts which are the accounts used when the build is initially deployed

Create nodeconfig.ConfigType which is the configuration variables for a node off of the HarmonyConfig previously configured
Update each network id to be compatible with the Ethereum chain id (Why?)
setupConsensusAndNode

Set up blacklisted addresses, allowed transactions, and local accounts
Set up database factory
Set up engine which contains:

Epoch context cache
Verified signature cache

Create a new shard chain collection with the db factory and the engine
Create the blockchain for the current shard (beacon shard has to be initialized regardless)
Create a new consensus with the deciders and provided configuration
Create a new node with all of the above information node.New()

Creates a node that represents a protocol-participating node in the network

Instantiate syncing providers by following rules:

If starting with a localnet or offline, use local sync peers.
If specified with --dns=false, use legacy syncing which is syncing through self-discover peers.
Else, use the dns for syncing.

InitConsensusWithValidators initialize shard state from latest epoch and update committee pub keys for consensus
Set block verifier, which is a function to verify the block (account model) they are running consensus on