C-3 showed that two nodes reach the same public record. C-1 is the step before that — “can an independent second node be stood up and reconstructed on infrastructure outside the operator’s control,” i.e. does it depend on the operator’s private DB / API / indexer / config / default frontend? We take inventory in source. It is the answer to the reviewer’s §19 #12 (“accurate node reconstruction procedure”).

1. Claim (what is verified)

That, using only infrastructure outside the operator’s control (an independent VPS) and a published procedure, an independent node can be stood up to reconstruct the public record — i.e. it depends on none of the operator’s private DB / API / indexer / config / default frontend (§19 #12).

2. Method

3. Verdict

• independent DB / indexer: self-hosted PostgreSQL and Elasticsearch installed by install.sh. No operator DB or index needed.
• independent API: the record is reconstructed from the chain; Api is an outbound serving layer. The FE hits its own node via API_HOST defaulting to an empty (relative) URL. No reverse dependency on an operator API.
• independent Config: contract addresses from config + repo defaults; RPC supplied by each operator via env (cfg.rpcUrl). Nothing fetched from the operator.
• independent Default FE: the FE connects same-origin to its own node. No hardcoded operator domain — a third party can point their FE at their own node.

4. Receipt (public proof)

Anyone can reproduce the same procedure from a fresh Ubuntu with this one line (public installer, public repo):

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/GilgameshCaw/Caw/master/install.sh)"
# installs Node/Postgres/Redis/Elasticsearch/nginx/pm2/certbot → creates caw user
# → clones the public repo → interactive CLI for RPC etc. → starts services

The inventory of the five private-dependency tests:

Confirming the auxiliary paths are operator-independent too:

# rpc-proxy: FE → own backend → the node's own configured upstream RPC (origin-gated)
client/src/api/routes/rpc-proxy.ts      # getL1/L2HttpRpcUrl() (each operator's own RPC, not the operator's)
# DmRelay: after storing a DM locally, relay P2P to "other instances" serving the recipient (each node signs)
client/src/services/DmRelayService       # not an operator central server / DMs are off-chain
# FE API base URL
FrontEnd/src/api/client.ts               # API_HOST = import.meta.env.VITE_API_HOST ?? '' → relative (own node)

And that “the procedure actually works” is proven by node2 (the clean rebuild) reaching the same record as node1 in C-3 (content fingerprint 82651606…, 309,672 rows matching).

5. Notes & limits

The node needs L2 RPC access to the public chain (public dRPC or your own Base node). That is a public-infra prerequisite, not an operator dependency, but a trust in the RPC provider remains for availability/censorship (open door).

The scope is the on-chain record. DMs and images are off-chain (DM is P2P-relayed; images on local disk / Filebase) and outside reconstruction — an honest open door. Dependence on the Base L2 sequencer is also a known open door.

This item (C-1) secures the reconstruction procedure and operator-independence (#12). The itemized proofs of FE independence / API independence / indexer reproducibility (§19 #19–21) are covered in C-4 (this inventory is its basis). That both nodes share one operator is the same open door as C-3.