https://parallaxprotocol.org

Parallax connects to the Parallax peer-to-peer network to download and fully validate blocks and transactions. It includes a full node, mining engine, and JSON-RPC server.

For an immediately usable, binary version of the Parallax software, see https://parallaxprotocol.org/en/resources/parallax-client/.

Parallax requires Go 1.26+ and a C compiler.

make parallax

This builds the four binaries of the Parallax suite into build/bin/:

• parallaxd — the full-node daemon.
• parallax-cli — the JSON-RPC command-line client.
• parallax-wallet — offline wallet management tool (create/list/import accounts, sign messages and raw transactions).
• parallax — a multi-call wrapper that dispatches to any of the companions.

To build the full suite of tools (adds clef, abigen, pvm, rlpdump, devp2p):

make all

For detailed build instructions including cross-compilation, Docker builds, and platform-specific notes, see docs/.

./build/bin/parallaxd

Start with an interactive JavaScript console:

./build/bin/parallaxd console

See the getting started guide for connecting to the network, creating accounts, and sending transactions.

Run the node in the background, detached from the terminal:

./build/bin/parallax-cli start

Under the hood, parallax-cli start execs the sibling parallaxd binary with --daemon. parallaxd installed next to parallax-cli is the default location; $PATH is the fallback. Logs redirect to <datadir>/parallax.log, a PID file is written, and the process survives terminal exit. See Daemon mode for systemd integration and flag details.

Invoking parallaxd --daemon directly has the same effect.

parallax-cli is the JSON-RPC client. Common operations have short subcommands that auto-discover the IPC socket in <datadir>:

parallax-cli info           # chain, network, mempool, mining overview
parallax-cli tip            # latest block summary
parallax-cli blockcount     # bare integer, pipeable in shell scripts
parallax-cli balance <addr> # decimal LAX (or --wei for integer)
parallax-cli stop           # graceful shutdown

Equivalent invocations through the wrapper:

parallax rpc info
parallax rpc balance <addr>

Object responses are pretty-printed JSON; scalar responses are bare values (safe for $(parallax-cli blockcount)). Full reference: Command-line RPC.

Runtime-driven bash and zsh completion scripts ship under build/completion/:

source build/completion/parallaxd.bash
source build/completion/parallax-cli.bash
source build/completion/parallax-wallet.bash
source build/completion/parallax.bash

Or install under ~/.local/share/bash-completion/completions/ (bash) or any directory on $fpath (zsh) for persistence.

Parallax uses a layered architecture:

kernel/         Consensus rules — no RPC, no networking, no I/O
validation/     Blockchain state, transaction pool, block validation
script/         PVM execution engine, ABI codec
primitives/     Fundamental types (blocks, transactions) and serialization (RLP)
p2p/            Peer-to-peer networking and wire protocol
node/           Node lifecycle, full node, mining
rpc/            JSON-RPC server, GraphQL, typed client
wallet/         Account management, keystore, hardware wallets

Each layer only imports from layers below it, enforced by Go's import rules. The kernel/ package can be embedded independently without pulling in the full node stack.

The main branch is the development branch. Changes are submitted as pull requests and require review before merging.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Submit a pull request against main

Format code with gofmt. Document public symbols. Keep commits focused and prefix messages with the affected package (e.g., kernel/xhash: fix difficulty calculation).

Run the full test suite:

make test

Run the linter:

make lint

Parallax is a security-critical project. Any mistake can cost users money. All changes must include appropriate test coverage and pass CI before merging.

• Technical Documentation
• Beginner Guides
• JSON-RPC API Reference
• Whitepaper
• The Parallax Doctrine

LGPL-3.0 (library) / GPL-3.0 (executables). See COPYING.