logicsrc/docs/opendisk.md

OpenDisk

OpenDisk is one file a machine serves about the disk it will rent: how much is free, what a GiB-month costs, where the box is, what it will hold, how it proves it is still holding it, and where it is paid. A requester reads the disk's own file instead of a marketplace's listing, a directory lists every disk that serves one, and a peer with a spare terabyte is on the market by putting a file at a URL. It is the web-facing door onto an OpenSwarm paid2seed seeder, and it is what a peer-to-peer storage market is made of. It is maintained by Profullstack, Inc. as part of the LogicSRC open-standards surface, with d1sks.com as the reference marketplace.

Status: 0.1. A description of a file a marketplace will read, published so a peer can serve one and any directory can read it.

Slug: opendisk

The problem

OpenSwarm already says how a seeder is paid to hold a swarm: a requester posts a pay2seed offer at a hub with money escrowed, a seeder takes a paid2seed lease, proves it holds the pieces every period, and is paid per GiB-month. What it does not say is how a requester finds a seeder before posting, or how a seeder is found at all. The market in paid2seed is one-sided: offers are listed and seeders poll them. A requester who wants a box in Germany with 2 TB free and a year of clean proofs has no file to read, and a seeder with those things has no file to serve.

Every other rentable thing has a listing. /.well-known/ is where a host says things about itself. What is missing is the one file that puts a seeder's capacity, price and record where a requester can fetch it, in a shape every reader agrees on, so a disk can be found instead of waited for.

Terms

• A disk is capacity somebody will rent: a peer's spare drive, a seedbox, a storage node, a provider's storage plan. Its descriptor is the file it serves about itself.
• The seeder is the OpenSwarm identity that takes leases for the disk and is paid. One disk, one seeder key.
• A requester is whoever wants bytes kept, as pay2seed defines it: a publisher, a person with a backup, an agent.
• A marketplace is a directory of disks that also fronts a hub, so a requester can read a disk and post the offer in one place. d1sks.com is the reference.
• A reader is anything that reads a descriptor: a marketplace, a requester's client, a person's terminal, an agent.

The descriptor

A disk serves a JSON document at /.well-known/opendisk.json on its own origin.

{
  "name": "seeder-a41e, Falkenstein",
  "web": "https://seeder-a41e.example",
  "operator": "https://seeder-a41e.example/.well-known/openprofile.md",
  "key": "ed25519:a41e7f0c2d9b8e5a6f3c1d4e7b0a9f8c5d2e1b4a7c0f3e6d9b2a5c8e1f4d7b0a",
  "hubs": ["https://bittorrented.com/api/openswarm", "https://d1sks.com/api/openswarm"],
  "updated": "2026-09-13T06:00:00Z",
  "capacity": { "total_gib": 3726, "free_gib": 2210, "reserved_gib": 200 },
  "price": {
    "currency": "USD",
    "per_gib_month": 0.12,
    "per_gib_transfer": 0.004,
    "min_gib": 1,
    "max_gib": 2000,
    "min_days": 7,
    "max_days": 365
  },
  "location": { "regions": ["fsn1"], "countries": ["DE"] },
  "network": { "bandwidth_mbps": 1000, "transfer_gb": 20000, "ipv4": 1, "ipv6": true },
  "storage": [{ "type": "hdd", "size_gb": 4000 }],
  "accepts": {
    "visibility": ["private", "public"],
    "bases": ["own", "licensed", "open-license", "public-domain", "personal"],
    "encrypted_only": false,
    "max_file_gib": 500,
    "feeds": true
  },
  "proof": { "kinds": ["challenge", "probe"], "every_hours_min": 6, "webhook": "https://seeder-a41e.example/openswarm/hooks" },
  "record": {
    "source": "https://bittorrented.com/api/openswarm/pay2seed/seeders/ed25519:a41e7f0c2d9b8e5a6f3c1d4e7b0a9f8c5d2e1b4a7c0f3e6d9b2a5c8e1f4d7b0a",
    "standing": 412,
    "proven": 418,
    "failed": 3,
    "abandoned": 0,
    "since": "2025-11-02T00:00:00Z"
  },
  "payout": { "payee": "ed25519:a41e7f0c2d9b8e5a6f3c1d4e7b0a9f8c5d2e1b4a7c0f3e6d9b2a5c8e1f4d7b0a", "network": "eip155:8453" },
  "holding": "https://seeder-a41e.example/openswarm/holding"
}

The smallest valid descriptor is a name, the free space and a price:

{ "name": "spare drive, Lisbon", "capacity": { "free_gib": 900 }, "price": { "currency": "USD", "per_gib_month": 0.08 } }

The rules, and every one degrades:

1. name, capacity.free_gib and price.per_gib_month are the only required keys. A descriptor with those alone is valid: it is a disk, it has room, it has a price. A reader lists what it was given and reports the rest as unstated rather than assumed.
2. operator is the person or organisation answerable, as an OpenProfile.md URL. web is the disk's site, if it has one beyond the descriptor. A disk with no operator is listed as such, and a marketplace may decline to list it.
3. key is the seeder's OpenSwarm identity, the key that signs paid2seed proofs and is registered as an ippay payee. hubs are the hubs it takes leases at. A requester posts its offer at one of them; a disk with no hubs is rented some other way, and web says how.
4. updated is when anything in the file last changed. capacity.free_gib changes with every lease, so a disk that is busy updates often and a reader with updated unchanged since its last fetch may skip the rest.
5. capacity is in GiB: total_gib the disk, free_gib what a new lease can have now, reserved_gib what the operator keeps back. free_gib is the number that matters and the only one required.
6. price is one price list. per_gib_month is what one GiB held for thirty days costs, pro rata, the same unit pay2seed offers are priced in. per_gib_transfer is what serving one GiB costs on top, or absent when serving is included; a disk that prices transfer in more detail does so as OpenBandwidth describes and keeps this one number as the summary. min_gib, max_gib, min_days, max_days bound a lease. currency is ISO 4217.
7. location, network, storage are as OpenServer defines them, the same keys and the same units, so a directory that already reads an OpenServer storage block reads this one: the provider's own region names and ISO country codes, megabits and gigabytes, one storage entry per drive with type nvme, ssd or hdd. A requester choosing a disk for a backup wants the country; one choosing a seed for a release wants the bandwidth.
8. accepts is the operator's policy, the same policy a paid2seed seeder client applies when it polls a market, stated up front so a requester does not post an offer this disk would never take. visibility and bases are pay2seed's lists. encrypted_only: true means the disk holds ipfile ciphertext and nothing else. max_file_gib caps one swarm. feeds says whether it follows ipdb feeds and keeps their segments.
9. proof is how the disk expects to be checked: kinds any of challenge and probe as paid2seed §4 defines them, every_hours_min the shortest period it will accept, webhook where a hub pushes challenges so the disk need not poll.
10. record is the disk's history, and its source is the hub's own GET /seeders/<key> for this seeder. The numbers are copied from there for a reader's convenience; the hub's answer wins, and a marketplace reads the hub rather than the file for anything it ranks on.
11. payout names the ippay payee and the network it is paid on. The address itself lives at the hub, registered by the seeder key, and this file never carries it.
12. holding is a URL that answers with what the disk holds right now, or the same list inline. The shape is below.
13. Unknown keys are kept. A disk says more than this document names, and a reader passes it through under the disk's own key.

Serve it as application/json. The descriptor is a claim; that it came from the disk's own origin is one verification, and the hub's record under key is the other.

Holding

The other half of a holders list in OpenFile: what one disk is holding, from the disk's side.

{
  "updated": "2026-09-13T06:14:02Z",
  "holding": [
    { "id": "sha256:d6c3f828…c493ff", "swarm": "sha256:4b74eb43…c7a342", "lease": "sha256:5c02…", "gib": 0.68, "since": "2026-09-05T18:30:00Z", "until": "2026-10-05T18:00:00Z", "provenAt": "2026-09-13T06:00:05Z" },
    { "id": "sha256:1f9e…", "swarm": "sha256:88c0…", "lease": "sha256:0e4d…", "gib": 122.4, "since": "2026-08-01T00:00:00Z", "until": "2027-08-01T00:00:00Z", "provenAt": "2026-09-13T00:00:02Z" }
  ]
}

id is the OpenFile content hash when the disk knows it, swarm the infohashV2, lease the paid2seed lease. A private swarm's id is its plainRoot from the manifest, which reveals nothing about the bytes; a disk holding personal swarms omits them from the public list, because a backup's existence is the requester's to announce.

Renting a disk

A requester that has read a descriptor and wants the disk:

1. Checks accepts against what it wants kept, and record.source at the hub for the disk's standing.
2. Makes its attestation, as pay2seed §3 requires, and posts a pay2seed.offer at one of the disk's hubs with priceUsdPerGibMonth at or above price.per_gib_month and seeders.min of one.
3. Waits for the disk's seeder client to take the lease, which it does on its next poll or at once if the hub pushes to proof.webhook.
4. Watches the lease as pay2seed §7 says: proven periods, spend against the budget, the next challenge due.

A marketplace collapses those into one act: read the disk, post the offer, and show the lease when it lands. A requester that wants several disks posts one offer with seeders.min above one and lets the hub fill it, or reads several descriptors and posts to each. Nothing in the swarm side changes: leases, challenges, probes, receipts and payout are paid2seed exactly as written.

Marketplaces

A marketplace reading descriptors:

1. Fetches on a schedule, hourly at least, because free_gib moves. A disk that has told the marketplace its updated has not changed is skipped.
2. Dedupes on key. One seeder identity is one disk, whatever URL its descriptor was found at. A descriptor with no key dedupes on its origin.
3. Reads standing from the hub, never from the file, for anything it sorts or filters by. The file says where; the hub says how much.
4. Lists a disk's policy beside its price, so a requester sees that a cheap disk takes public swarms only, or ciphertext only, before it posts.
5. Marks a disk gone, not deleted, when its descriptor stops answering, and shows the leases it still holds until they end.
6. Reports absence as absence. An unstated operator is unstated. An unstated accepts means the disk will say when the offer arrives.

d1sks.com is the reference marketplace: a directory of every OpenDisk descriptor it has read, standing pulled from the hubs each disk names, and an offer form that posts to the disk's hub. nichedb.dev lists every disk in its hosting collection as an OpenServer offer, by the mapping below.

As an OpenServer offer

A disk is a hosting offer, and a directory that reads OpenServer descriptors lists it as one without a second parser:

OpenServer	from OpenDisk
provider.name, provider.web, provider.operator, provider.country	name, web, operator, location.countries[0]
offers[].id	key, or the descriptor's origin when there is no key
offers[].name	name
offers[].url	the descriptor's URL
offers[].kind	storage
offers[].premises, management, tenancy	off-prem, unmanaged, shared
offers[].model	p2p when the operator is a person or a peer, centralized when it is a provider; the disk may state model itself and that wins
offers[].location, network, storage	the same keys, unchanged
offers[].price	{ "amount": price.per_gib_month, "currency": price.currency, "interval": "month", "unit": "gib" }, unit kept as the provider's own key
offers[].stock	in_stock when free_gib is at least price.min_gib, else out_of_stock
offers[].updated	updated

A provider that sells storage plans and rents disk to swarms serves both files: an OpenServer descriptor for its plans and an OpenDisk descriptor for what a seeder can lease. A peer with one drive serves only this one, and is listed in both places.

What is deliberately absent

No lease in this file. Leases, proofs, receipts and payout are paid2seed, and this document does not restate them. The descriptor is the ask; the offer is the bid; the lease is the match, and it is made at the hub.

No escrow at the disk. Money sits at a hub, as pay2seed says. A disk never holds a requester's funds and never has to be trusted with them.

No reputation of its own. record is a copy of what a hub signed, and a marketplace reads the hub. A disk that claims a standing its hub does not confirm is listed with the hub's number.

No plaintext. A disk holds what accepts says, and by default that is ipfile ciphertext it cannot read. A personal swarm's existence is not in the public holding list.

No central registry. Anyone may serve a descriptor and anyone may read it. d1sks.com is one marketplace among any number, and two marketplaces reading the same file list the same disk.

Serving one

By hand, or by the seeder client. torlnk serve and a c0mpute node with --openswarm have every number this file needs: free space is the filesystem, the price and policy are the operator's configuration, the record is the hub's. Write it to the web root next to robots.txt and rewrite it when a lease starts or ends.

Related standards

• OpenSwarm: pay2seed for the offer and the attestation, paid2seed for leases, proofs, receipts and standing, ippay for the payee, ipfile for what is held.
• OpenFile: the publisher's side, and the holders list a disk appears in.
• OpenServer: the hosting offer a disk maps onto, and the units this document borrows.
• OpenProfile.md: the operator behind a disk.

Version history

Version	Date	Change
0.1	2026-09-13	First publication: the descriptor, holding, renting a disk, marketplaces, the OpenServer mapping.

License

The specification text is CC BY 4.0. Serve it, copy it, extend it.