The realm runs on data.
Someone has to keep it flowing.
Indexing it, serving it, maintaining the services that decentralised apps depend on, no matter which way the winds are blowing that week. That's us.
The creed
An open community, not a faction.
The Night's Watch is for the people who build and hold the data layer of web3: indexers, node and data-service operators, protocol and dapp devs, delegators, curators, and anyone serious about decentralised, verifiable, public data.
We're here to ship and to maintain: to help each other run things well, prototype new services, keep the lights on, and bring more people into the work.
What we value
Four things, and we mean them.
- ›Build and maintainDoers over talkers.
- ›Help freelyThe Watch looks after its own.
- ›Mission over politicsWe hold the wall for the realm, not for any one house.
- ›Open by defaultCode, docs, and knowledge in the open.
We're mission-first and not a faction. Everyone serious about the mission is welcome here, whatever banner they also fly.
The work
92 repositories, all of them running somewhere.
Indexing, data services, gateways, languages and operator tooling. Five of them lead; the rest are listed below, and every one is public.
Be your own indexer. One Rust binary, one command, live indexed API in under two minutes. No mandatory third-party data dependency.
Free Dune-class data API for Arbitrum One
Gateway-in-a-Box: a self-hostable Graph Protocol subgraph gateway for Horizon / Arbitrum One
A decentralised Subgraph-MCP gateway as a Horizon data service. Every subgraph becomes a pay-per-call MCP tool for AI agents…
Polaris: tokenless Horizon fork on Arbitrum One (wstETH stake, USDC payments, no inflation)
Indexing
The engine, its catalogue of nests, and the pieces that sit around it.
Nests: The Graph
Prebuilt indexing definitions for the protocol's own data. Point nuthatch at one and it self-hosts what a rented subgraph used to serve.
Nests: DeFi, NFTs and apps
The same, for the contracts everyone else actually queries. One binary per nest, no subgraph deployment.
Data services
Paid, verifiable data endpoints: the plumbing and the services built on it.
Gateways & routing
Serving queries, settling payments, keeping the lights on.
Languages & SDKs
Better ways to author the things that index.
Operator tooling
Diagnostics and sharp edges for people running real infrastructure.
Protocol
Experiments in how the incentives themselves should work.
Also in the org
Newer or uncategorised work.
Before you join
Who this is for, and who it isn't.
The second column is the useful one. Nobody is turned away, but it saves you an evening finding out.
For
- Indexers and node operators, running things in production
- People building data services, gateways and the plumbing under them
- Protocol and dapp devs who depend on the data layer holding
- Delegators and curators who want to understand what they are backing
- Anyone who would rather read the source than the announcement
Not for
- Price talk. There are a thousand rooms for that and this is not one
- Recruiting for a faction, a token, or a governance slate
- Support-desk expectations. Everyone here is a volunteer with a day job
- Anyone who needs the answer within the hour
- Shilling, in any of its costumes
Take the black
No application. No fee.
If you run infrastructure, write the code that indexes it, or just want to learn how any of this actually works, there's a seat.
Join the Discord