Simple Compute Market For Compute Sellers

Simple Compute Market Series

Historical release context — May 29, 2026 component release

This post discusses the May 29 market-cli-v0.5.3 component release and its publication-time framing. Current main is later and is covered by the repository's root MIT license; the component tag predates that root license. Neither the release nor current source proves an Arkhai-hosted market or live supply. See Arkhai Compute and current SCM source for current boundaries.

Key Takeaways

• SCM lets sellers publish capacity to one or more configured operator registries, negotiate scalar price under seller policy, and settle through Alkahest, while provisioning stays on the seller service
• The seller flow is one path: deploy, publish, set policy, settle, provision, and operate
• Sellers keep control of seller-originated rates, infrastructure, reachability, provisioning, and delivery within the settlement assets, networks, and deployment boundaries configured by registry and market operators
• Wallet signatures establish signing-publisher provenance, not verified legal identity, KYB, quality, or capacity
• Settlement is Alkahest-backed and verified on-chain before you provision
• The public open-beta code release provisions KVM VMs with SSH credential handoff and optional GPU passthrough; other delivery adapters require separate implementation and confirmation

Useful compute capacity does not become a market just because it has a listings page.

To sell it, you need market machinery: machine-readable offers, negotiation policy, commitments, provisioning, delivery evidence, accepted settlement assets, and release criteria. Compute networks and operators usually end up building that plumbing themselves, or renting it from a platform that then owns the customer relationship.

SCM gives sellers that machinery as inspectable software. You run market-storefront: publish capacity to one or more configured operator registries, negotiate scalar price under your own policy, settle through Alkahest, and keep provisioning on your own service. Registry access may be open or gated. The buyer's side has its own post; this is the same workflow from the seller's seat.

The public open-beta code release provisions KVM virtual machines with SSH credential handoff and optional GPU passthrough. Other delivery adapters require separate implementation and confirmation.

The Seller's Problem

A seller has capacity. What it lacks is everything around the sale.

Buyers driven by software need offers they can read, prices they can negotiate under policy, a commitment they can trust, delivery they can verify, and settlement that resolves on its own. Build all of that per market and the plumbing becomes the product. Hand it to a platform and the platform owns the relationship, the pricing model, and the payment rails.

SCM separates the layers: the seller runs its storefront and delivery infrastructure, while a registry or market operator configures and runs its own registry, access, settlement, topology, and operating boundaries. One party may take more than one role, but the software does not conflate them.

The Seller Flow

Standing up a storefront follows one path:

• Deploy. Run market-storefront through Docker Compose, Helm and Kubernetes, or the raw runtime.
• Publish. Establish signing-publisher provenance with a wallet signature and publish offers to one or more configured operator registries. A signature is not verified legal identity or KYB.
• Set policy. Configure the negotiation policy so the storefront returns accept, counter, or exit decisions. The current VM flow negotiates price; the selected schema and policies validate payment and settlement fields.
• Settle. Use Alkahest-backed escrow for accepted commitments, and verify the on-chain obligation before you provision.
• Provision. Connect KVM VM provisioning with SSH credential handoff for the shipped delivery path.
• Operate. Surface lease status, delivery evidence, recovery paths, and settlement state.

Reachability can use ordinary public endpoints or an optional ZeroTier overlay for private reachability, depending on deployment configuration.

Throughout, the split holds. SCM software coordinates the workflow; seller infrastructure delivers the machine; registry and market operators configure their deployments. No single mandatory broker is required.

What To Try

A seller or operator can evaluate SCM in steps:

• Inspect the storefront runtime in the repository.
• Follow the seller quickstart.
• Connect a test backend for the KVM VM path.
• Run a buyer negotiation against a test storefront and watch your policy decide.
• Decide whether deterministic, custom, or a Puffer-trained reinforcement learning policy fits your pricing.

Try The Seller Flow

• Explore the repository
• Follow the seller quickstart
• Add VM reachability with FRP
• Explore the seller pathway
• Scope a seller deployment

Your infrastructure. Your policy. Your seller-operated delivery path.

Define the offer. Set the policy. Confirm the commitment. Deliver the machine.

Next, the design patterns underneath all of this: what belongs to the market, what belongs to participants, and what stays specific to the resource.