For Validators

The svmgov CLI provides validators with commands to create and manage governance proposals, support other validators’ proposals, and cast stake-weighted votes.

New to governance terms? Read Terminology first, then continue with command guides.

Requirements

Solana validator identity keypair
Minimum 100,000 SOL staked to create a proposal
Any active stake to support a proposal or vote
Access to a Solana RPC endpoint
Operator API URL for fetching Merkle proofs. The CLI defaults to the main NCN router: https://ncn-governance.solana.com.

Quick Setup


# Clone the repo and check out the latest release tag
git clone https://github.com/solana-foundation/solana-governance.git
cd solana-governance
git checkout "$(git describe --tags --abbrev=0 --match 'v*')"
 
# Build and install svmgov
cd svmgov/cli && ./install.sh
 
# Run interactive setup
svmgov init
 
# Optional: override the default operator API URL
svmgov config set operator-api-url https://your-operator-api.example.com

Release tags are named v<version> (for example v0.4.0-40100) and match the svmgov crate version. The git checkout above resolves the newest one for you, leaving you on a detached HEAD — expected, and fine for building. To build a specific version instead, pick its tag from Releases and check that out by name. main is the development branch and can sit ahead of the latest release, so prefer a tag unless you need an unreleased change.

Available Commands

Initialize Index Create Proposal Support Proposal Cast Vote Modify Vote Finalize Proposal List Proposals View Proposal

Global Arguments

All validator commands support:

Option	Short	Env var	Description
`--keypair <PATH>`	`-k`	`SVMGOV_KEY`	Path to validator identity keypair JSON
`--rpc-url <URL>`	`-r`	`SVMGOV_RPC`	Solana RPC endpoint
`--network <NETWORK>`	`-n`	—	Network for verifier/proof fetching

Resolution order: explicit flags → environment variables → config file → built-in defaults

Configuration File

~/.svmgov/config.toml — set once via svmgov init:


user_type = "Validator"
identity_keypair_path = "/path/to/validator.json"
network = "mainnet"
rpc_url = "https://api.mainnet-beta.solana.com"
operator_api_url = "https://ncn-governance.solana.com"

The operator_api_url defaults to the main NCN router, https://ncn-governance.solana.com, for commands that fetch Merkle proofs (support-proposal, cast-vote, modify-vote). Override it with svmgov config set operator-api-url <URL> only if you need a different verifier/router.