As AI systems move toward agentic architectures and autonomous collaboration, the demand for context-aware inference in decentralized settings is growing. But today, deploying and governing Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers across EVM networks is still too fragile, insecure, and manual.
ContextumAI provides a decentralized, cryptographically verifiable platform to securely deploy and manage MCP servers with on-chain permissioning and tokenized governance.
This post goes deep into the architecture, tooling, and smart contract mechanics of Contextum.
Problem Landscape: Why MCP Servers Need Better Infrastructure
Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers are designed to serve real-time contextual data to AI agents—embeddings, metadata, model prompts, inference state—across trustless environments. However, current approaches have critical flaws:
1. Lack of Deployment Standardization
MCP server deployments are typically hand-crafted or glued together with ad hoc scripts. These environments differ widely, introducing inconsistencies and misconfigurations.
2. No On-Chain Verifiability
There’s no way for an agent to verify that a specific context server is running a particular container image or was deployed by a trusted identity.
3. No Governance or Access Control
Permissions to deploy, upgrade, or terminate context servers are often centralized and untraceable.
Contextum’s Architecture: Layered Security Meets Developer Usability
Core Design Goals:
- Immutable + verifiable deployment
- On-chain governance for upgrades and access
- Portable CLI tooling
- Modular server runtimes
1. Containerized MCP Runtimes
Our MCP server is a stateless containerized application written in TypeScript and powered by Bun, selected for fast startup, native TS support, and small binary footprint.
Example stack:
- Runtime: Bun 1.x
- Container: Alpine Linux + Docker BuildKit
- Security: seccomp, no root, read-only FS, AppArmor
Sample Dockerfile:
FROM oven/bun:alpine
WORKDIR /app
COPY . .
RUN bun install --production
CMD ["bun", "start"]
`
We restrict permissions aggressively—disabling shell access, limiting filesystem writes, and isolating secrets via environment variables passed only at runtime.
2. CLI Tooling (contextum-cli)
To reduce friction and error-proneness, we’ve built a CLI tool that abstracts complex steps into verifiable workflows:
bash
npx contextum-cli init
npx contextum-cli build
npx contextum-cli deploy --network sepolia --image-hash Qm123... --sign
CLI Features:
- Local container test & sign
- Push to decentralized registry (Phase 2)
- Deploy via smart contracts
- Track deployments by wallet address
- Typed config schema (
contextum.config.ts)
Internally, we use dockerode for container handling and ethers.js for chain interaction.
3. Smart Contracts
We’ve deployed minimal, auditable contracts to Ethereum testnet (currently Sepolia).
ImageRegistry.sol
Stores SHA-256 hashes of verified container images:
solidity
function registerImage(bytes32 hash) external onlyStaker {
require(!registered[hash], "Already registered");
registered[hash] = true;
emit ImageRegistered(hash, msg.sender);
}
MCPDeploymentManager.sol
Tracks deployment metadata:
- Deployer address
- Image hash
- Deployment timestamp
- Linked governance settings
Deployments are signed client-side and validated on-chain.
4. Governance Layer (CTXM Token)
CTXM is our native ERC-20 token that governs protocol-level permissions.
CTXM Utility:
- Stake to deploy servers (anti-spam)
- Vote on protocol upgrades
- Access premium server templates
- Fee discounts for enterprise deployments
Deployment Pipeline (Under the Hood)
Sample flow:
- Developer signs container image (SHA-256)
- CLI uploads hash to
ImageRegistry - CLI deploys MCP server
- Metadata committed to
MCPDeploymentManager - Smart contract emits
DeploymentRegistered - Agents verify the deployment via chain
Roadmap
| Phase | Goal |
|---|---|
| ✅ Phase 1 | MVP CLI, secure runtime, Sepolia testnet |
| ⏳ Phase 2 | Decentralized image registry, encrypted secrets |
| 🔜 Phase 3 | DAO governance launch, Snapshot voting, staking UI |
| ⏭ Phase 4 | IPFS log persistence, zk proof-of-context, enterprise integrations |
Dev Resources
- Playground: https://app.contextum.org
-
GitHub: https://github.com/ContextumAI
contextum-climcp-runtimesmart-contracts
Final Thoughts
We believe the future of AI is decentralized—and context is the missing layer. Contextum bridges Web3 infrastructure with verifiable AI serving for autonomous agents.
If you’re interested in:
- Running an MCP node
- Contributing to contracts
- Integrating decentralized governance
We’d love to hear from you.
Contact: founders@contextum.org
Website: https://contextum.org
Top comments (1)
Thanks for sharing!