Ecliptic.eth holds the business logic for the ledger kept by Azimuth.eth. It may be modified by galaxy vote. This determines things such as what the various proxies are capable of, how keys are changed, or verifying that a request is valid.

Ecliptic.eth uses external contracts such as Azimuth.eth and Polls for data storage so that it can easily be replaced in case the logic needs to be changed without affecting the data. These data contracts are owned by Ecliptic.eth, and this ownership is passed to the new Ecliptic contract whenever it is replaced. Thus it is advised for clients to not store Ecliptic's contract address directly, but instead ask the Azimuth.eth contract for its owner attribute to ensure that transactions are sent to the latest Ecliptic contract. Alternatively, the ENS name Ecliptic.eth will always resolve to the latest Ecliptic.

You can read about Urbit's first upgrade to Ecliptic, which occurred in the summer of 2021, here. The second occurred later in the year and consisted of several small modifications to ready the PKI for the introduction of naive rollups.

Ecliptic.eth implements the ERC-721 interface for non-fungible tokens, as well as the ERC-165 standard for interface detection.

There are currently 28 functions which may be called to write to the Ecliptic, and 17 functions to read data from the Ecliptic. Many of these have a corresponding layer 2 action, and/or can be performed using Bridge. We note these facts where applicable.

Write functions

Here we briefly describe each function in Ecliptic.eth which allows one to write data to Ethereum. These can be called using Etherscan, but the most common functions may be called from within Bridge.

We only document here the write functions specific to Ecliptic.eth and not the standard functions that are part of the ERC-721 or ERC-165 interfaces.

Points interface

These functions are available to each owner of a Point, and a subset of them are available to its proxies. All of these actions may be performed from Bridge.

configureKeys

    function configureKeys(uint32 _point,
                           bytes32 _encryptionKey,
                           bytes32 _authenticationKey,
                           uint32 _cryptoSuiteVersion,
                           bool _discontinuous)

Configure _point with network public keys _encryptionKey, _authenticationKey, and corresponding _cryptoSuiteVersion, incrementing the Point's keyRevisionNumber if the keys have changed and continuityNumber number if _discontinuous is set to true (see Life and Rift).

Corresponds to the layer 2 %configure-keys action.

spawn

    function spawn(uint32 _point, address _target)

Spawn _point, then either give, or allow _target to take, ownership of _point.

If _target is the :msg.sender, _target owns the _point right away. otherwise, _target becomes the transfer proxy of _point.

Requirements:

• _point must not be active
• _point must not be a planet with a galaxy prefix
• _point's prefix must be linked and under its spawn limit
• :msg.sender must be either the owner of _point's prefix, or an authorized spawn proxy for it

Corresponds to the layer 2 %spawn action.

transferPoint

    function transferPoint(uint32 _point, address _target, bool _reset)

Transfer _point to _target, clearing all permissions data and keys if _reset is true. _reset set to makes this transaction a breach, and thus this action increments the continuityNumber of _point, and usually the keyRevisionNumber as well (see Life and Rift).

Requirements:

• :msg.sender must be either _point's current owner, authorized to transfer _point, or authorized to transfer the current owner's points (i.e. is listed as an ERC-721 operator in operators).
• _target must not be the zero address.

Corresponds to the layer 2 %transfer-point action.

escape

    function escape(uint32 _point, uint32 _sponsor)

Request escape as _point to _sponsor.

If an escape request is already active, this overwrites the existing request.

Requirements:

• :msg.sender must be the owner or manager of _point,
• _point must be able to escape to _sponsor as per to canEscapeTo()

Corresponds to the layer 2 %escape action.

cancelEscape

    function cancelEscape(uint32 _point)

Cancel the currently set escape for _point.

Corresponds to the layer 2 %cancel-escape action.

adopt

    function adopt(uint32 _point)

As the relevant sponsor, accept the _point.

Requirements:

• :msg.sender must be the owner or management proxy of _point's requested sponsor

Corresponds to the layer 2 %adopt action.

reject

    function reject(uint32 _point)

As the relevant sponsor, deny the _point's %adopt request.

Requirements:

• :msg.sender must be the owner or management proxy of _point's requested sponsor

Corresponds to the layer 2 %reject action.

detach

    function detach(uint32 _point)

As the _sponsor, stop sponsoring the _point.

Requirements:

• :msg.sender must be the owner or management proxy of _point's current sponsor

Corresponds to the layer 2 %detach action.

Unlike all other layer 1 actions, layer 1 sponsors may use a layer 1 %detach on a layer 2 sponsee. See the Layer 2 section for more detail. The detach action available in Bridge is a layer 2 action, so a layer 1 detach must be done manually.

Proxy management

These functions are used to manage the various proxies. All of these actions may be performed from Bridge.

setManagementProxy

    function setManagementProxy(uint32 _point, address _manager)

Configure the management proxy for _point.

The management proxy may perform "reversible" operations on behalf of the owner. This includes public key configuration and operations relating to sponsorship.

Requirements:

• :msg.sender must be either _point's current owner or the management proxy.

Corresponds to the layer 2 %set-management-proxy action.

setSpawnProxy

    function setSpawnProxy(uint16 _prefix, address _spawnProxy)

Give _spawnProxy the right to spawn points with the prefix _prefix using the spawn function.

Requirements:

• :msg.sender must be either _point's current owner or the spawn proxy.

Corresponds to the layer 2 %set-spawn-proxy action.

setVotingProxy

    function setVotingProxy(uint8 _galaxy, address _voter)

Configure the voting proxy for _galaxy.

The voting proxy is allowed to start polls and cast votes on the point's behalf.

Requirements:

• :msg.sender must be either _point's current owner or the voting proxy.

There is no corresponding layer 2 action since voting must occur on layer 1.

setTransferProxy

    function setTransferProxy(uint32 _point, address _transferProxy)

Give _transferProxy the right to transfer _point.

Requirements:

• :msg.sender must be either _point's current owner, an operator for the current owner, or the transfer proxy.

Corresponds to the layer 2 %set-transfer-proxy action.

Poll actions

Most of these are functions only available to galaxies. They are related to voting. As voting does not occur on layer 2, there are no corresponding layer 2 actions for poll actions.

Upgrade and document polls last for 30 days, or once a majority is achieved, whichever comes first. If a majority (129) of yes or no votes is achieved, the final vote cast in favor of the winning option also triggers updateUpgradePoll or updateDocumentPoll as appropriate. Otherwise, if a quorum of 64 votes is achieved, with a majority voting for yes, and the 30 day voting period has expired, then any Ethereum address may call updateUpgradePoll or updateDocumentPoll as appropriate.

startUpgradePoll

    function startUpgradePoll(uint8 _galaxy, EclipticBase _proposal)

As _galaxy, start a poll for the Ecliptic upgrade _proposal.

Requirements:

• :msg.sender must be the owner or voting proxy of _galaxy,
• the _proposal must expect to be upgraded from this specific contract, as indicated by its previousEcliptic attribute.

This action must be performed manually - it is not available in Bridge.

startDocumentPoll

    function startDocumentPoll(uint8 _galaxy, bytes32 _proposal)

As _galaxy, start a poll for the _proposal. Document polls last for 30 days, or once a majority is achieved, whichever comes first.

The _proposal argument is the keccak-256 hash of any arbitrary document or string of text.

This action must be performed manually - it is not available in Bridge.

castUpgradeVote

    function castUpgradeVote(uint8 _galaxy,
                              EclipticBase _proposal,
                              bool _vote)

As _galaxy, cast a _vote on the Ecliptic upgrade _proposal.

_vote is true when in favor of the proposal, false otherwise.

This action may be performed from Bridge.

castDocumentVote

    function castDocumentVote(uint8 _galaxy, bytes32 _proposal, bool _vote)

As _galaxy, cast a _vote on the _proposal.

_vote is true when in favor of the proposal, false otherwise.

This action may be performed from Bridge.

updateUpgradePoll

    function updateUpgradePoll(EclipticBase _proposal)

Check whether the _proposal has achieved majority, upgrading to it if it has. Any Ethereum address may call this function.

This action eiher occurs as part of a vote that achieves a majority, or must be performed manually. It is not available in Bridge.

updateDocumentPoll

    function updateDocumentPoll(bytes32 _proposal)

Check whether the _proposal has achieved majority. Any Ethereum address may call this function.

This action eiher occurs as part of a vote that achieves a majority, or must be performed manually. It is not available in Bridge.

Contract owner operations

The following functions may only be performed by the owner of the contract. There are only two such functions, one of which is to spawn galaxies. As all galaxies have already been spawned, it is no longer of any use. Thus only setDnsDomains is relevant today.

createGalaxy

    function createGalaxy(uint8 _galaxy, address _target)

Grant _target ownership of the _galaxy and register it for voting. Galaxies are given by a uint8, and since all 256 galaxies have already been spawned, this function has no valid arguments.

setDnsDomains

    function setDnsDomains(string _primary, string _secondary, string _tertiary)

Sets 3 DNS domains by which galaxy IP addresses may be looked up as part of the bootstrap process to get on the network. Currently, all three domains are urbit.org.

Read functions

Here we briefly describe each function in the Ecliptic which allows one to read data from the contract. These can be called using Etherscan.

We only document here the read functions specific to Ecliptic and not the standard functions that are part of the ERC-721 or ERC-165 interfaces.

depositAddress

This returns the deposit address for layer 2, which is 0x1111111111111111111111111111111111111111. Ships sent to this address are controlled on layer 2 instead of via Ecliptic.

canEscapeTo

    function canEscapeTo(uint32 _point, uint32 _sponsor)

Returns a bool that is true if _point could try to escape to _sponsor.

azimuth

Returns the address of the Azimuth.eth contract: 0x223c067f8cf28ae173ee5cafea60ca44c335fecb.

claims

Returns the address of the Claims contract: 0x1df4ea30e0b1359c9692a161c5f30cd1a6b64ebf.

polls

Returns the address of the Polls contract: 0x7fecab617c868bb5996d99d95200d2fa708218e4.

previousEcliptic

Returns the address of the previous Ecliptic address.

getSpawnLimit

    function getSpawnLimit(uint32 _point, uint256 _time)

Returns a uint32 that is the total number of children the _point is allowed to spawn at _time.

There is no limit for galaxies. Instead, for most galaxies, all stars have already been spawned and placed into one of the lockup contracts: Linear Star Release and Conditional Star Release.

Beginning in 2019, stars may spawn at most 1024 planets. This limit doubles every subsequent year until the maximum is reached. However, this limit is not currently implemented on Layer 2.