Finding
The current glossary describes Starlight in present tense as Stellar's Layer 2
protocol without surfacing that the SDF reference implementation is archived,
experimental, and documented for local/Testnet use. A concise definition is
not itself a production-deployment claim, but consumers predictably promote it
into one when no lifecycle qualifier or canonical archive link is adjacent.
Evidence
Additional recorded evidence:
- current Stellar glossary Starlight entry
- archived stellar-deprecated/starlight repository and experimental README
- 2021/2022 SDF Starlight experiment posts
Recommendation
Add an explicit dated lifecycle note: Starlight is historical payment-channel
research/protocol work; the SDF reference implementation is archived and must
not be treated as maintained production Mainnet infrastructure. Link the
archived repository and CAP-0021/CAP-0040 as protocol primitives, and direct
readers to project-specific primary deployment evidence for any current
payment-channel, commit-chain, or rollup implementation.
Source Record
This was found by the downstream Raven eval/improvements loop and recorded as sd-015 (stellar-docs, discovered 2026-07-10).
Public source record: improvements/stellar-docs/sd-015-starlight-lifecycle-status.md
Immutable source snapshot: bbb0d4f55527
Resolution Handoff
When a fix is deployed, please link the resolving issue or PR to the source record above and notify Raven through:
https://github.com/kalepail/stellar-raven/issues/new?template=upstream-improvement-ready.yml&title=%5Bupstream-ready%5D%20sd-015%3A%20
Include the finding id, resolving issue/PR, deployed version or timestamp, and the smallest live recheck. Raven independently verifies the upstream surface before changing the finding to fixed-upstream; issue closure or a merged PR alone is not treated as proof. After a distinct reviewer repeats the live check, the active finding is retired to Raven's resolved ledger while the immutable snapshot remains available.
Finding
The current glossary describes Starlight in present tense as Stellar's Layer 2
protocol without surfacing that the SDF reference implementation is archived,
experimental, and documented for local/Testnet use. A concise definition is
not itself a production-deployment claim, but consumers predictably promote it
into one when no lifecycle qualifier or canonical archive link is adjacent.
Evidence
Additional recorded evidence:
Recommendation
Add an explicit dated lifecycle note: Starlight is historical payment-channel
research/protocol work; the SDF reference implementation is archived and must
not be treated as maintained production Mainnet infrastructure. Link the
archived repository and CAP-0021/CAP-0040 as protocol primitives, and direct
readers to project-specific primary deployment evidence for any current
payment-channel, commit-chain, or rollup implementation.
Source Record
This was found by the downstream Raven eval/improvements loop and recorded as sd-015 (stellar-docs, discovered 2026-07-10).
Public source record: improvements/stellar-docs/sd-015-starlight-lifecycle-status.md
Immutable source snapshot: bbb0d4f55527
Resolution Handoff
When a fix is deployed, please link the resolving issue or PR to the source record above and notify Raven through:
https://github.com/kalepail/stellar-raven/issues/new?template=upstream-improvement-ready.yml&title=%5Bupstream-ready%5D%20sd-015%3A%20
Include the finding id, resolving issue/PR, deployed version or timestamp, and the smallest live recheck. Raven independently verifies the upstream surface before changing the finding to
fixed-upstream; issue closure or a merged PR alone is not treated as proof. After a distinct reviewer repeats the live check, the active finding is retired to Raven's resolved ledger while the immutable snapshot remains available.