Start Operator

After completing Validators Manager → setup, you're ready to start the Operator Service to begin automated validator registrations.

Start Operator Service

You are ready to run the Operator Service using the start command, passing your Vault address and consensus and execution endpoints as flags.

Required Flags

• --vaults - Comma-separated list of Vault addresses
• --consensus-endpoints - Consensus client API endpoints
• --execution-endpoints - Execution client API endpoints

There are several ways to run the Operator Service, depending on how you store private keys.

Local Keystores

By default, the Operator Service runs with locally stored keystores created during key creation.

./operator start-local --vaults=0x3320a...68 --consensus-endpoints=http://localhost:5052 --execution-endpoints=http://localhost:8545

If you did not use Operator Service to generate validator keys, you will need to add the following flags:

• --keystores-dir - The directory with validator keys in the EIP-2335 ↗ standard. The folder must contain either a single password.txt password file for all the keystores or separate password files for each keystore with the same name as keystore, but ending with .txt. For example, keystore1.json, keystore1.txt, etc.
• --keystores-password-file - Absolute path to the password file for decrypting keystores.

Existing Wallet Configuration

If you are using an existing wallet (instead of the Operator Service generated wallet), you must add these flags:

• --wallet-file - Path to the wallet keystore file
• --wallet-password-file - Path to the password file for the wallet keystore

External Key Management

For alternative key management methods (Remote Signer, HashiCorp Vault, API Mode), see the Alternative Key Management → section.

Running Options

Depending on your installation method, use the appropriate command format:

Binary

Using Binary

./operator start-local --vaults=0x000...,0x111... --consensus-endpoints=http://localhost:5052 --execution-endpoints=http://localhost:8545

Docker

Using Docker

For Docker, you first need to mount the folder containing validator keystores and include the --data-dir flag alongside the start command:

docker run --restart on-failure:10 \
-u $(id -u):$(id -g) \
-v ~/.stakewise/:/data \
europe-west4-docker.pkg.dev/stakewiselabs/public/v3-operator:v4.0.0 \
src/main.py start-local \
--vaults=0x3320ad928c20187602a2b2c04eeaa813fa899468 \
--data-dir=/data \
--consensus-endpoints=http://localhost:5052 \
--execution-endpoints=http://localhost:8545

Source Files

Using Source Files

PYTHONPATH=. poetry run python src/main.py start-local \
--vaults=0x000... \
--consensus-endpoints=http://localhost:5052 \
--execution-endpoints=http://localhost:8545

Optional Flags

• --harvest-vault - Enable automatic vault reward harvesting. Default is false
• --disable-withdrawals - Disable partial withdrawals (use oracle exits)
• --claim-fee-splitter - Enable automated reward splitter withdrawals
• --max-fee-per-gas-wei - Maximum gas fee for both validator registrations and Vault harvests
• --concurrency - Number of CPU cores used to both load keystores and create keystores.
• --validators-type=v1 - Register 0x01 validators (default: 0x02)

Performance Optimization

For optimal performance, set --concurrency to half your CPU cores (e.g., --concurrency=4 for 8-core systems) to prevent overloading during keystore operations.

Setup Complete

Congratulations🎉! Your Operator Service is now running and ready to trigger validator registrations within your Vault. Monitor the logs to ensure validators are being registered successfully.

Next Steps

Continue to Rated Network Integration → to set up validator performance tracking and analytics reporting.