The --local network option of the quickstart image starts stellar-core with the TESTING_SOROBAN_HIGH_LIMIT_OVERRIDE config set to true.
This raises the limits of the network to essentially unlimited.
This was done as a work around because the config upgrade script that exists today for stellar-core is complex, has a lot of dependencies that we can't guarantee are up-to-date when new XDR ships, and difficult to use. The quickstart image needs to be able to be built with bleeding edge versions of stellar-core, horizon, and soroban-rpc, and as such it can't be made dependent on SDKs that may take sometime to update with new XDR.
However, using the high limit override has some with its own costs.
It doesn't give us control over limits and the ecosystem has been clear that it needs to be able to test against testnet/pubnet limits locally and not just unlimited limits.
Also, issues have arisen where it appears that quickstart local's limits are behaving oddly in buggy ways in comparison to futrenet/testnet network deployments.
In hindsight I think we made the wrong call to rely on a flag that flipped to unlimited and enabled specialized behavior. We need to be able to replicate testnet/pubnet behavior in quickstart with the --local option, and to do so we should use actual config upgrades to configure soroban.
The
--localnetwork option of the quickstart image starts stellar-core with theTESTING_SOROBAN_HIGH_LIMIT_OVERRIDEconfig set totrue.This raises the limits of the network to essentially unlimited.
This was done as a work around because the config upgrade script that exists today for stellar-core is complex, has a lot of dependencies that we can't guarantee are up-to-date when new XDR ships, and difficult to use. The quickstart image needs to be able to be built with bleeding edge versions of stellar-core, horizon, and soroban-rpc, and as such it can't be made dependent on SDKs that may take sometime to update with new XDR.
However, using the high limit override has some with its own costs.
It doesn't give us control over limits and the ecosystem has been clear that it needs to be able to test against testnet/pubnet limits locally and not just unlimited limits.
Also, issues have arisen where it appears that quickstart local's limits are behaving oddly in buggy ways in comparison to futrenet/testnet network deployments.
Both of those issues have been discussed here: https://discord.com/channels/897514728459468821/1155167115142254643
In hindsight I think we made the wrong call to rely on a flag that flipped to unlimited and enabled specialized behavior. We need to be able to replicate testnet/pubnet behavior in quickstart with the
--localoption, and to do so we should use actual config upgrades to configure soroban.This issue is dependent on:
cc @anupsdf