ORACLE INTAKE, FALLBACKS, AND SOURCE SELECTION

In production, the venue expects a primary Hermes / Pyth path plus redundant HTTP oracle paths. That Hermes + HTTP mux is the default safety posture. Single-source fallback exists only as an explicit liveness override for a degraded interval, not as part of normal operating mode.

Source path	Role in the venue
Hermes / Pyth	Main reference anchor for supported markets
HTTP oracle path	Redundant fallback and cross-check surface
Exchange-derived marks or indices	Secondary context only when policy permits venue-side cross-checking
Last-known fallback	Controlled recovery path when explicit policy allows it

#How a source becomes active

A fallback is not activated just because it exists.

The active source path is chosen through checks on freshness, agreement, deviation, lag, and market-specific guard rules.

Dexter's source mux can prefer the freshest acceptable source set or require stronger agreement before a market is allowed to stay open.

That means source selection is a policy decision, not a hidden implementation detail.

The venue is deliberately opinionated about when a fallback should count and when a market should instead tighten or stop.

The important point is that a fallback is not a license to ignore disagreement.

If the source family collapses to one path or agreement is no longer strong enough, the venue should degrade rather than pretend the mark is still normal.

That is why the mux is deliberately conservative.

Convenience is not treated as a valid reason to trade on a weak source set.

TEXT

 primary source weakens
   -> mux evaluates freshness, deviation, and lag
   -> acceptable fallback path is selected if policy allows
   -> otherwise market posture tightens or degrades
   -> selected source set is recorded for publication

#Why source selection matters for settlement

The selected source set is not only an operational choice.

It becomes part of the published settlement context through oracle-source commitments and related publication metadata.

That means the contract layer can later anchor not just a state root, but the price-source posture associated with that root.

In a hybrid venue, that is one of the main differences between a price layer that is merely convenient and a price layer that is actually reviewable.

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