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yorickdowne merged 1 commit into from
Feb 10, 2026
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Update node types documentation #537

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26 changes: 16 additions & 10 deletions website/docs/Usage/NodeTypes.md
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Expand Up @@ -10,19 +10,25 @@ You can run an Archive node, with all history and full lookup for all historical

You can run a Full node, with all history and limited lookup for historical transactions. This fits into a 4TB drive and is often the choice for RPC nodes.

You can run an Expired node, with pre-merge history and receipts gone. This fits into a 2TB drive and is often the choice for validator nodes.
You can run an Expired node, with pre-merge history and receipts gone. This fits into a 2TB drive and is often the choice for validator nodes. This is the default.

This is controlled by variables in `.env`, which can be set with `nano .env`. Switching from one type to another often requires a full resync.

`EL_ARCHIVE_NODE` - run the execution layer node as an archive. The required space can vary widely depending on the client: From right around 2 TB to well over 50TB
`EL_MINIMAL_NODE` - run the execution layer node with history expiry. `true` is pre-merge history expiry; `rolling` is 1-year rolling if the client supports it;
`aggressive` expires all but the last few blocks, if the client supports it

If both variables are set to `false`, you have a Full node.

`CL_ARCHIVE_NODE` - run the consensus layer node as an archive, including blobs where supported
`CL_MINIMAL_NODE` - run the consensus layer node with minimal storage, if the client makes that distinction. See the `--help` for Grandine and Teku, for example,
with `./ethd cmd run --rm consensus --help`, or directly via `docker run` on their image.
`EL_NODE_TYPE` can be one of:
- `archive`
- `full`
- `pre-merge-expiry` - the default
- `pre-cancun-expiry` - supported by some EL clients, see `default.env`
- `rolling-expiry` - keeps one year of history by default. Supported by some EL clients, see `default.env`
- `aggressive-expiry` - keep minimal history. Supported by some EL clients, see `default.env`

Please be careful with expiry options: Expired history also means expired receipts, which can throw protocols such as RocketPool, SSV, Stakewise for a loop. All of these work with pre-merge-expiry, but will likely break with the other expiry options, unless they get receipts from another (unexpired) RPC endpoint.

`CL_NODE_TYPE` can be one of:
- `archive`
- `full`
- `pruned` - the default
- `pruned-with-zkproofs` - **highly** experimental running mode without an execution layer client, currently only supported by a special build of Lighthouse

## Switch from Full to Expired node

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