Keys, Addresses, and DataMaps
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Autonomi keeps upload payment, public retrieval, and private retrieval separate.
If you are building on Autonomi, you need to understand three different things:
wallet keys pay for uploads
public addresses retrieve public data
DataMap retrieves private data
Treating those as one all-purpose developer key makes the rest of the system harder to understand.
Wallet private key
You provide it
Pay for uploads
Public address
Returned after a public upload or public DataMap store
Share or store it, then use it to retrieve public data
DataMap
Returned after a private upload or saved locally by some tools
Store it safely, then use it to retrieve private data
The wallet private key is used for paid writes.
Depending on the tool you use, that appears as:
AUTONOMI_WALLET_KEY for antd
SECRET_KEY for ant
an attached Wallet in ant-core
This key is about payment, not about private-data decryption.
A public address is what you use to retrieve data that has been published on the network.
When you upload public data or store a public DataMap, the tooling returns an address that other readers can use later. If the content changes, the address changes too, because the storage model is content-addressed and immutable.
A DataMap is the private retrieval material that ties uploaded content back to its encrypted chunks.
For private data:
the chunks are still stored on the network
the DataMap is returned to you instead of being stored publicly
if you lose that DataMap, you lose the practical ability to retrieve the private content
That means DataMap handling is a data-access concern, not a payment concern.
The simplest way to think about the split is:
use a wallet key when you need to upload data
use a public address when you want to retrieve public data
use a DataMap when you want to retrieve private data
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