Overview
op-reth provides the EVM execution environment for OP Stack chains. A rollup node (op-node or kona-node) derives the canonical chain from L1 data and drives op-reth through the Engine API; op-reth executes the payloads, maintains the chain state, and serves JSON-RPC. It extends upstream reth with the OP Stack protocol changes, such as the deposit transaction type and L2 fee handling, and bakes the Superchain Registry’s chain configurations into the binary, so registry chains work by name via the--chain flag.
It exists because every OP Stack node splits into a consensus half and an
execution half, mirroring post-merge Ethereum, and the execution client is the
half that runs the EVM. op-reth is the primary supported execution client and
the implementation maintained by Optimism: new OP Stack feature development,
including hardfork support, happens on op-reth. See
Choose your node stack for the selection
reasoning.
Who runs it: every node operator, paired one-to-one with a rollup node.
Chain operators run it as the execution half of their sequencer, where it
builds the new blocks the sequencing rollup node requests.
Get started
- Running a Node With Docker: run op-reth and op-node from the official Docker images. To build and run from source instead, see Building and running an OP Stack node from source.
How-tos
- Execution client configuration: configure op-reth and connect it to your consensus client.
- Running op-reth on OP Stack chains: install op-reth, pair it with a rollup node, and use the rollup-specific flags.
- Sync OP Mainnet: import Bedrock state and sync OP Mainnet from scratch.
- Building an archive node: archive versus full nodes, and how to prune op-reth safely.
- Running op-reth with historical proofs: provision the historical proof store that fault-proof infrastructure needs.
Configuration & flags reference
- op-reth configuration options: routes to the imported op-reth CLI reference, versioned with the op-reth source tree.
- Understanding the op-reth CLI: how the commands, chain selection, and configuration model fit together.
- op-reth JSON-RPC reference: the RPC namespaces op-reth serves.
Releases
Source & spec links
- Source:
rust/op-reth/in the Optimism monorepo. - Reth book, OP Stack chapter: the upstream reth project’s operational documentation, maintained with reth releases.
- L2 execution engine specification: the normative definition of the OP Stack’s changes to the execution engine.
- Deposits specification: the normative definition of the deposit transaction type op-reth implements.