ACDT 96 was held on September 14, 2026, with discussions focused on DevNet updates and consensus specifications. PK910 reported on DevNet 8, where an attack was running throughout the week affecting Besu and Aragon nodes, but the attack was stopped and clients are recovering with Aragon being rolled to the latest image. The team discussed plans for DevNet 11 testing, with PK910 suggesting a delay until after the testnet launch date agreement to include Sepolia and shadow forks. Clients confirmed the October 6th Sepolia upgrade timeline, though Enrico expressed concerns about the CL breakout process. The meeting included discussions about restricting which EIPs can add tests to the consensus specs repo, with Justin proposing to limit it to CFI and SFI EIPs. The CL breakout session addressed blob-related length specifications, collision handling in tests, and EIP 838 state access repricing, with participants reviewing PRs and discussing implementation approaches.
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The meeting focused on DevNet updates and upcoming network upgrades. PK reported that DevNet 8’s Joachim attack was stopped after running for a week, with most affected clients like Besu and Aragon now recovering and resyncing. The team confirmed the Sepolia upgrade is still scheduled for October 6th, though Enrico raised concerns about Beacon API support timing. The group discussed plans for shadow forks, with Pawan suggesting waiting one more week due to ongoing Lighthouse bugs, and there was a discussion about restricting which EIPs can add tests to the consensus specs repo, with agreement that tests should be prepared in advance but not restricted to CFI stage EIPs.
The team discussed three topics related to Ethereum specifications and implementation. For the first topic on blob-related length versus pillow length, they agreed that Nethermind should align with other clients’ implementation using network form instead of payload form, and clients will review the relevant PR asynchronously. Regarding the second topic on legacy test expectations, the group decided to merge Milen’s PR that reverts legacy tests to their pre-EIP-7610 state, while leaving the behavior of block access lists undefined. For the third topic on EIP-838 state access repricing, Maria confirmed it only requires text updates and has already been merged without changing client behavior.
Next Steps:
pk910: Coordinate with struggling clients on DevNet 8, notify them, and help them recover (already started, but needs to continue).
pk910: Consider changing some EL nodes to snap sync to speed up recovery.
All clients: Review the PR regarding blob-related length vs payload length and provide feedback asynchronously.
spencer: Merge Milen’s PR to update legacy tests to their pre-EIP7610 state.
All clients: Discuss and align asynchronously on adding a test case for the block access list behavior in the specific collision scenario.
spencer: Update the specs for EIP 838 (state access repricing) as it was merged.
spencer: Add a test for the EIP 837 state gas limit and include it in the upcoming official testnet release.
pk910: Revisit the readiness for Sepolia shadow fork on the next testing call, after clients have addressed their issues.