electric-cherry/docs/guides/bank.md

Player bank

The bank stores one points balance per exact GUID across T5 and T6. Players use .b, .d <amount|all> and .w <amount|all> with the TWS bank scripts. Deposits move spendable match points into the bank; withdrawals return bank points to the current match. Neither changes earned score_total. Bank-assisted games still count toward the existing leaderboards; the ledger records their match IDs. This release does not introduce separate bank-assisted rankings.

Setup and rollout

1. Back up the controller database. Update every host agent to 1.9.0 or later before enabling the bank. This version settles game journals before removing runtime storage; older agents do not. Package and offline-sign the agent release using the host update workflow.
2. Deploy Electric Cherry and restart the controller. Migration 20 creates accounts, requests and the ledger; migration 21 adds instance credentials and binds existing requests to their currently active native instance, if any.
3. Set EC_BANK_MAX_BALANCE (default 250000, range 1–1000000). Invalid configuration refuses new deposits. Lowering the limit preserves existing balances and prepared deposits; withdrawals remain available.
4. Build/install TWS plugins t5-plugin/t6-plugin 1.1.0 or later and restart the whole game-server process. Install tws_t5_bank.gsc or tws_t6_bank.gsc 1.0.0, common 1.0.0+ and telemetry 1.0.0+.
5. Create or rebuild the servers through EC. Launch preparation generates a cryptographically random ec_bank_ credential for each immutable instance, stores it in the private controller database, and injects it through configs/electric_cherry_bank.cfg. The launch command executes this private file and sets tws_server_id. The host agent writes the private file and derives tws_bank_url from its enrolled controller URL. Use an HTTPS controller URL.

There is no EC_BANK_TOKENS environment map and no per-server secret setup. The private configuration is sent only in that host's authenticated operation payload. It is excluded from shared recipes, promoted files and blob downloads. Do not upload electric_cherry_bank.cfg: its filename is reserved. Protect the controller database, host operation journal and per-instance runtime directory, which contain private credentials.

Retries, rebuilds and host moves of the same instance reuse its credential. Retiring the instance immediately revokes authentication. Creating another server with the same display name produces a new instance ID and secret; it cannot finish the old instance's requests. Accounts remain attached to player GUIDs, so balances survive the servers. Telemetry tokens and browser sessions cannot authorize bank requests. Host credentials can only settle decisions through the separate, operation-scoped teardown endpoint.

For an upgrade from the initial static-token implementation, drain outstanding transfers while the old controller/configuration still runs, then deploy and rebuild. Remove the obsolete environment map and any manually supplied token. Do not replace identities or discard pending journals to force an upgrade.

Machine API

All routes below are POST /api/bank/<action>, with Content-Type: application/json and Authorization: Bearer <server-bank-token>. Responses are never cached. Bodies are capped at 4096 bytes. GUIDs and request IDs stay strings; never convert them to numbers.

Action	Body	Meaning
balance	server, guid	Read the shared balance and currently available points
deposit	Transfer fields below	Reserve deposit capacity without crediting the account yet
withdraw	Transfer fields below	Reserve bank funds without debiting the account yet
commit	Identical transfer fields	Apply a prepared transfer once and append its ledger entry
cancel	Identical transfer fields	Release a reservation; also prevents a delayed prepare from applying

Transfer example:

{
    "server": "t5_zombie_theater_1",
    "guid": "18446744073709551615",
    "match": "reporter-match-key",
    "request_id": "unique-process-token-17",
    "operation": "deposit",
    "amount": 2000,
    "capacity": 995000
}

match is the reporter's telemetry match key, not Electric Cherry's numeric match ID. request_id is unique for the server and at most 64 characters. amount is a positive integer up to 1000000; withdrawal also accepts "all". The script resolves deposit all to its captured spendable points. capacity is the current room below the game's bank withdrawal cap of 1000000 points. An all withdrawal that exceeds this room is refused, rather than truncated.

Preparation requires the GUID to be present in the server's latest active match, with the exact telemetry match key. Late joiners may need to wait for the next 30-second heartbeat. Unknown/destroyed servers, absent players and old matches cannot prepare transfers. Settlement of an existing decision remains possible after match completion or retention. Host teardown can finish saved decisions after retirement; the retired game credential itself no longer authenticates.

Successful application responses include ok, state, code, request_id, amount and balance. States are balance, prepared, committed, cancelled or rejected. For balance reads, amount is the available balance. A business rejection uses HTTP 200 with ok: false, state: "rejected" and a code such as insufficient_balance, empty, bank_limit, points_limit, not_in_match or pending. It never changes points. Authentication failures use 401/403, malformed input 400/413/415, identity conflicts 409, and unavailable service 503.

Repeated requests return the saved result/state without applying a second change. Settled IDs never reopen; a committed result retains its original resulting balance even if later transfers change the account. Reusing an ID with different transfer fields returns 409. A GUID has at most one prepared transfer across all servers. SQLite transactions serialize checks, account updates and ledger insertion, so concurrent requests cannot overspend funds or deposit past the configured maximum.

Lost responses and recovery

The game saves a cancellation decision before sending a prepare request. Only a validated prepared reply lets it recheck the player's life, current spendable points and withdrawal room. It then records a commit decision and updates spendable points without yielding. The sender retries settlement with the original identity, at delays of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, then 30 seconds. Invalid, truncated or uncorrelated replies never authorize points changes.

A failed/uncertain prepare leaves game points unchanged and queues cancellation. Cancellation can arrive first: its tombstone blocks the delayed prepare. Death, respawn, disconnect or match end before application also cancels. After a commit decision, retries only finish the ledger; they never change game points again. These points now belong to the current match, so an applied withdrawal is not automatically refunded if that match ends or its server crashes.

Keep tws-bank/t5/ or tws-bank/t6/, relative to the game process working directory, on persistent writable storage with a single process per server/endpoint. Journals contain transfer data, not secrets. On a map/process restart, saved decisions settle before new bank commands. Unreadable storage disables the bank; failed writes prevent points changes. Pending decisions remain until acknowledged, even on credential errors. Bank holds do not expire automatically, because expiring a saved commit can lose a deposit or create a free withdrawal. Restore connectivity/configuration and the original journal to resolve holds; never delete a pending journal to unblock the bank. If storage is permanently lost, reconcile against the retained request and ledger records before any manual repair.

During removal, rebuild, host migration or launch cancellation, agent 1.9.0+ stops the game and drains its journals before deleting runtime files or starting a replacement. It uses its host credential at POST /api/agent/bank/settle; EC checks the assigned host, immutable instance, unfinished teardown operation, server and original request identity. This endpoint permits only commit/cancel, never new deposits or withdrawals. Journal URLs must match that host's configured controller; the agent never follows a journal URL. Corruption, a mismatched controller, failed acknowledgment or an outage retains storage and leaves the operation unresolved for retry. An interrupted rebuild uses the existing rebuild recovery workflow to retry with a fresh operation after settlement. Do not manually erase its old directory.

The journal provides recovery from map/process restart. It cannot make live game memory and SQLite one atomic transaction or preserve match points after a machine/storage failure. Back up persistent storage and verify crash behavior in the actual Windows/Plutonium deployment before rollout.

History and validation

Player profiles show the shared balance, pending status and 20 newest ledger entries, including signed amounts, resulting balances, server, time and match. Accounts, request IDs and ledger entries have no cascading match/server foreign keys and are not deleted by match retention or server deletion. Retained IDs also keep old retries idempotent. Expired match links become plain historical IDs. Include these tables in normal database backups.

Run npx vitest run tests/unit/bank.test.ts, then the usual lint, type checks, tests and build. TWS supplies node tools/check_bank.mjs and python3 tools/test_plugin_bank.py. Live validation must cover both games: deposit/withdraw amounts and all, insufficient funds and caps, joining before telemetry, .help, score HUD updates, death/respawn/disconnect during requests, lost prepare/commit replies, controller outage, disk failures and map/process restart with pending work. Confirm earned score and leaderboard behavior, and verify that another server's credential and the telemetry credential fail.