Running a node

Contributing a machine to the open network. Nothing here applies to Diffuse Enterprise, which enrols machines rather than accepting them.

Installing

One command, and nothing to build: the binary is prebuilt.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/UnlikedOne/diffuse/main/install.sh | bash

On Windows, in PowerShell:

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/UnlikedOne/diffuse/main/install.ps1 | iex

That downloads the binary, checks its published checksum, sets up the Python worker and puts everything in place. No account, no API key, no server of your own and no Rust toolchain.

Binaries exist for Linux on x86_64 and aarch64, and for macOS on Intel and Apple Silicon.

This is the open project's installer, not ours

Enterprise deliberately has no curl | bash path: it installs from signed packages through the system package manager. The difference is the audience. Piping a script from the internet into a shell is a reasonable trade for a volunteer and an unreasonable one for a hospital.

Serving a slice

diffuse host --model Qwen/Qwen2.5-0.5B-Instruct

The node measures its own memory, asks the network which slice is most needed, takes it, and starts serving. Logs go to the terminal and Ctrl+C stops it.

To join a specific network rather than the public one:

diffuse host --model Qwen/Qwen2.5-0.5B-Instruct --bootstrap http://your-sentinel:9440

Behind NAT

Nothing to configure. A node that cannot accept inbound connections serves through an encrypted relay, so a machine behind a home router contributes as well as consumes. That was a deliberate piece of work rather than a side effect: a network that only accepts publicly reachable machines is a network of data centres.

Talking to the network

diffuse chat

Your device tokenizes the prompt and runs the first layers itself. What leaves is transformed mathematics. Answers stream token by token as the network produces them.

What you are agreeing to

Worth being explicit, because it is the opposite of the Enterprise arrangement.

Your machine computes other people's requests. It sees raw activations, not text, and it cannot read what it is computing without work that is hard rather than impossible.

You are not anonymous to the network at the transport level. Your address is visible to the peers you connect to. The project hides what you say, not that you are speaking.

There is no operator, no support and no guarantee. Nodes come and go, the network heals, and a slice you were serving may move without notice.

If any of that is unacceptable for what you want to run, that is what Enterprise is.