v23.11: Bitcoin Orangepaper

We're pleased to announce the 23.11 release of Core Lightning, named by @ShahanaFarooqui. For a list of all changes, please see the changelog.

Highlights for Users

• The check command just got more powerful. Instead of only checking the parameters of a command, it will do all checks up to the point where something in the system would need to be altered now.
• Control all the runes! Runes got an additional restriction field per for even more powerful access control. This also comes with a new field last_used for the showrunes command.
• Users can now verify the validity of their existing emergency backups using the decode command.
• When the new config option invoices-onchain-fallback is set, Core-Lightning automatically adds a taproot fallback address to all invoices produced by invoice. This allows for onchain payments as a fallback mechanism.

Highlights for the Network

• Wumbology for all! The configuration option large-channels is now set by default.
• The dual-funding process stores the state when sending commitment_signed now. This allows to continue the funding process after a temporary connection loss.
• A new flag --commit-fee-offset allows to set an offset that can potentially reduce disagreements on feerate updates.
• Plugins can now allow even unknown messages by registration and also are allowed sending them.
• Some stability improvements and bugfixes regarding splices.
• A whole lot of cleanups to stay on track with small specification changes. This adds additional stability and reduces disconnects.

Highlights for Developers

• Wait a second: The wait and pagination api got extended, one can now also wait for listsendpays and listforwards.
• A new recover command can now be used to recover an unused node from a hsmsecret just as the --recover flag would do. This currently only works for sqlite3 backends.
• Ever wondered how much space a plugin occupies in your database? The new datastoreusage command will tell you.
• The rust bindings got some more coverage.
• Core-Lightning can no longer be build with --developer-enabled. To enable developer features use ./configure --enable-debugbuild and set the config option --developer instead.

Since 23.08, we've had 499 commits by 29 authors in 97 days!

A special thanks to the 5 first time contributors:

• Mariusz Kogen
• dergoegge
• Tony Giorgio
• maxwedwards
• hMsats

~ @nepet, @ShahanaFarooqui, @endothermicdev, @cdecker, @niftynei and @rustyrussell

v23.11rc3

Release candidate for v23.11

v23.11rc2

Release candidate for 23.11

v23.11rc1

Release candidate for 23.11

v23.08.1: Satoshi's Successor II

Bugfix release for bad issues found since 23.08 which can't wait for 23.11, and some minor low-impact fixes (e.g. docker images, documentation, CI).

• JSON-RPC: Fixed a wrong number type being used in routes (#6642) and showrunes on a specific rune would always say stored: false. (#6640)
• clnrest now works on MacOS (#6605)
• Build: test for python3 or python, rather than assuming python3 (#6630)
• Plugins: renepay: various minor fixes. (#6632)

v23.08: Satoshi's Successor

We're pleased to announce the 23.08 release of Core Lightning, named by Matt Morehouse.

For a list of all changes, please see the changelog

Highlights for Users

• Several pay plugin improvements for better payment reliability.
• New setconfig command to change config lines dynamically without node restart: limited now, but more coming in future.
• BIP-93 seed backup support thanks to @adi2011's Summer of Bitcoin project.
• @Lagrang3 (under a grant from BuildOnLayer2) implemented Pickhardt Payment in a new experimental renepay plugin (and corresponding renepay command) offers a much more sophisticated method of making payments (and much more experimental!).

Highlights for the Network

• Per-channel ignorefeelimits setting for getting fee disagreements unstuck.
• Taproot address support: now the default for change addresses.
• Preemptive failure of incoming HTLCs if the outgoing is stuck due to high fees, to avoid channel loss.
• Dual-funding has been tweaked to the latest spec, but it's still experimental.
• The new experimental-splicing option implements the new splicing draft to move funds in and out of live channels.

Highlights for Developers

• A new wait command supports invoices, along with listinvoices allowing ordering and pagination (with more commands to come!)
• pay supports self-payment: you can pay your own invoices.
• pay int a bolt11 with a description hash without providing a description has been temporarily undeprecated (but descriptions now work properly with \ in them now!).
• Experimental builds are no longer required: all experimental features are now explicit runtime options.
• User-defined tracepoints have been added to the a few paths, to help with tracing bottlenecks in production systems.

Since 23.05, we've had 660 commits by 37 authors in 104 days!

A special thanks to the 12 first time contributors:

• Eduardo Quintana
• sumBTC
• Paul Miller
• Orbital
• Jonathan Underwood
• Ilya Evdokimov
• Erik De Smedt
• Chase
• Bryan Ramos
• Bitkarrot
• avatar4d
• Amin Bashiri

~ @rustyrussell, @ShahanaFarooqui, @endothermicdev, @cdecker, and @niftynei

v23.05.2: Austin Texas Agreement(ATXA) III

This is a bugfix-only release which repairs several issues reported in the wild. It is a recommended upgrade for anyone on v23.05.

• --enable-experimental-features compilation fixed.
• pay and decodepay with description now correctly handle JSON escapes (e.g " inside description)
• pay has undeprecated paying a description-hash invoice without providing the description (since it didn't work reliably until now!)
• GRPC: listpeers sometimes could fail on unknown HTLC states.

~ @rustyrussell, @ShahanaFarooqui, @endothermicdev, @cdecker, and @niftynei

v23.05.1: Austin Texas Agreement(ATXA) II

This is a bugfix-only release which repairs several crashes reported in the wild. It is a recommended upgrade for anyone on v23.05.

• Fixed crash (memory corruption!) in listtransactions ([#6304])
• Don't crash on gossip store deletion fail ([#6297])
• Fix incompatibility with LND which prevented us opening private channels ([#6304])
• Fixed crash in dual-funding. ([#6273])

~ @rustyrussell, @ShahanaFarooqui, @endothermicdev, @cdecker, and @niftynei

v23.05: Austin Texas Agreement(ATXA)

We're pleased to announce the 23.05 release of Core Lightning, named by @instagibbs

For a list of all changes, please see the changelog

Highlights for Users

• NEW commando-blacklist and commando-listrunes RPCs for blacklisting and listing stored runes.
• NEW feerates added 2 new options as "minimum" and NN"blocks". Use explicit block counts or slow/normal/urgent/minimum.
• listclosedchannels RPC to show old, dead channels.
• reckless added support for node.js plugin installation and for networks beyond bitcoin and regtest.
• Spending unilateral close transactions now use dynamic fees based on deadlines (and RBF), instead of fixed fees.
• More bug fixes and improved logging.

Highlights for the Network

• Blinded payments are now supported by default.
• Now always double-check bitcoin addresses are correct (no memory errors!) before issuing them.
• Allow slight overpaying, even with MPP, as spec now recommends.

Highlights for Developers

• Removed msat suffix from all millisatoshi fields, as deprecated in v0.12.0.
• PSBTv2 support; all APIs now support both v0 & v2.
• NEW methods listpeerchannels, listclosedchannels, decode and decodepay from RPC to grpc mapping.
• Improvements on the python gossmap implementation.
• The mTLS private keys are no longer group-readable.
• Added NEW command makerune in hsmtool to make a master rune for the node.
• NEW setpsbtversion command to aid debugging and compatibility.
• cln-rpc anc cln-grpc can now work with a range of versions.

Since 23.02.2, we've had 265 commits by 17 authors over 59 days

A special thanks to the 2 first time contributors:

Shahana Farooqui @ShahanaFarooqui
Anmol Agrawal @anmode

~ @ShahanaFarooqui :), @endothermicdev, @cdecker, @niftynei and @rustyrussell

v23.02.2: CBDC Backing Layer III

This is a minor release, a recommended upgrade from v23.02 with several bug fixes. (There was no public v23.02.1 release, since we hadn't finalized signatures before we needed to release this).

For a list of all changes, please see the v23.02..v23.02.2

Highlights for Users

• pay requiring a full description (not just a hash) has been pushed back, since it broke BTCPayServer and lnbits. It's still deprecated, and we will work with them to try to achieve this.
• Documentation now available for Offers invoicerequest, disableinvoicerequest and listinvoicerequest commands.

Highlights for the Network

• Zombie channels change reverted as some pruned channels were found to still be functional.
• Static channel backups no longer sent to nodes not advertising peer storage feature.

Highlights for Developers

We would like to thank all the users who submitted bug reports: ❤️

~ @endothermicdev, @cdecker, @niftynei and @rustyrussell