# Runners

Runners turn a scenario plan into a live environment while keeping the plan
unchanged. Choose based on feedback speed, reproducibility, and fidelity. For
environment and operational considerations, see [Operations](operations.md).

**Important:** All runners require `POL_PROOF_DEV_MODE=true` to avoid expensive Groth16 proof generation that causes timeouts.

## Local runner
- Launches node processes directly on the host.
- Fastest feedback loop and minimal orchestration overhead.
- Best for development-time iteration and debugging.
- **Can run in CI** for fast smoke tests.
- **Node control:** Not supported (chaos workloads not available)

## Docker Compose runner
- Starts nodes in containers to provide a reproducible multi-node stack on a
  single machine.
- Discovers service ports and wires observability for convenient inspection.
- Good balance between fidelity and ease of setup.
- **Recommended for CI pipelines** (isolated environment, reproducible).
- **Node control:** Supported (can restart nodes for chaos testing)

## Kubernetes runner
- Deploys nodes onto a cluster for higher-fidelity, longer-running scenarios.
- Suits CI with cluster access or shared test environments where cluster behavior
  and scheduling matter.
- **Node control:** Not supported yet (chaos workloads not available)

### Common expectations
- All runners require at least one validator and, for transaction scenarios,
  access to seeded wallets.
- Readiness probes gate workload start so traffic begins only after nodes are
  reachable.
- Environment flags can relax timeouts or increase tracing when diagnostics are
  needed.

```mermaid
flowchart TD
    Plan[Scenario Plan] --> RunSel{Runner<br/>(local | compose | k8s)}
    RunSel --> Provision[Provision & readiness]
    Provision --> Runtime[Runtime + observability]
    Runtime --> Exec[Workloads & Expectations execute]
```