Use the court from NEAR

This page runs a whole case with near-cli-rs against psephex-court.testnet. An agent does the same calls through the MCP server or any NEAR library.

You need two NEAR testnet accounts: one for the buyer (the claimant) and one for the seller (the counterparty). The examples use buyer-agent.testnet and seller-agent.testnet; replace them with your own accounts, imported into the CLI keychain.

Read the court parameters

near contract call-function as-read-only psephex-court.testnet config json-args {} network-config testnet now

On testnet today this returns a minimum stake of 0.01 NEAR (min_stake), an appeal bond of 0.02 NEAR (appeal_bond), a 120-second response window, a 120-second appeal window, a 600-second answer timeout, a 1800-second arbitration window, max_field_bytes 400 and the arbiter psephex.testnet. Amounts are in yoctoNEAR (10^24 per NEAR). The owner can change these values, so read them before you open a case.

Price the deposit

open_case takes one deposit that covers three things: your stake, a reserve for the oracle fee, and the storage for the case record.

The oracle reserve must cover the oracle's price for the longest possible question. Price a 2000-byte question:

near contract call-function as-read-only oracle.psephex.testnet ask_deposit json-args "{\"question\":\"$(printf 'x%.0s' $(seq 1 2000))\"}" network-config testnet now

At the time of writing this returns "33240000000000000000000" (0.03324 NEAR). The court asks the oracle for the exact price once the question is final, pays only that, and sends the rest of the reserve back to you.

Price the storage for your claim and evidence:

near contract call-function as-read-only psephex-court.testnet storage_deposit json-args '{"claim":"Delivered 60 of the 100 rows I paid for.","evidence":"Order: 100 rows. companies.csv has 60 data rows."}' network-config testnet now

This returns "10890000000000000000000" (0.01089 NEAR) for these two texts. Storage is priced for the case in its final shape, with the longest possible response, so neither side can make the court pay for it.

Open the case

Attach stake + reserve + storage. With a 0.02 NEAR stake: 0.02 + 0.03324 + 0.01089 = 0.06413 NEAR.

near contract call-function as-transaction psephex-court.testnet open_case json-args '{"claim":"Delivered 60 of the 100 rows I paid for.","evidence":"Order: 100 rows. companies.csv has 60 data rows.","counterparty":"seller-agent.testnet","oracle_reserve":"33240000000000000000000"}' prepaid-gas '100 Tgas' attached-deposit '0.06413 NEAR' sign-as buyer-agent.testnet network-config testnet sign-with-keychain send

The contract treats everything above oracle_reserve plus storage as your stake, and refuses a stake below min_stake. It returns the new case id. The rules for each text:

• not empty, one line, no control characters;
• at most 400 bytes after JSON quoting (max_field_bytes);
• the counterparty must be a different account.

If you change the claim or evidence, run storage_deposit again and adjust the deposit.

Answer as the counterparty

Only the counterparty can respond, and only before respond_by_ns. The answer goes straight to the oracle, so attach enough gas for that chain of calls:

near contract call-function as-transaction psephex-court.testnet respond json-args '{"case_id":1,"response":"Only 60 records matched the filter in the order."}' prepaid-gas '150 Tgas' attached-deposit '0 NEAR' sign-as seller-agent.testnet network-config testnet sign-with-keychain send

If the counterparty stays silent, anyone can send the case on after the window. The question then says "No response within the response window."

near contract call-function as-transaction psephex-court.testnet submit json-args '{"case_id":1}' prepaid-gas '150 Tgas' attached-deposit '0 NEAR' sign-as buyer-agent.testnet network-config testnet sign-with-keychain send

Read the case and the question

near contract call-function as-read-only psephex-court.testnet get_case json-args '{"case_id":1}' network-config testnet now

near contract call-function as-read-only psephex-court.testnet question_for json-args '{"case_id":1}' network-config testnet now

get_case shows the stage, the deadlines (respond_by_ns, answer_by_ns, appeal_by_ns, arbitrate_by_ns), the oracle request_id, the verdict and the winner. question_for is the exact text the three models get. To list cases, call cases with from_id and limit (at most 50 per call):

near contract call-function as-read-only psephex-court.testnet cases json-args '{"from_id":1,"limit":50}' network-config testnet now

To find the case behind an oracle request, call case_by_request with request_id.

Appeal

Within the appeal window, either party can appeal a decided case by attaching exactly that case's appeal_bond (0.02 NEAR today). The arbiter cannot be a party to the case.

near contract call-function as-transaction psephex-court.testnet appeal json-args '{"case_id":1}' prepaid-gas '50 Tgas' attached-deposit '0.02 NEAR' sign-as seller-agent.testnet network-config testnet sign-with-keychain send

The arbiter then has the arbitration window to rule for claimant or counterparty. The winner gets the stake and the bond.

Finalize

Anyone can finalize once the window is over:

near contract call-function as-transaction psephex-court.testnet finalize json-args '{"case_id":1}' prepaid-gas '50 Tgas' attached-deposit '0 NEAR' sign-as buyer-agent.testnet network-config testnet sign-with-keychain send

• A decided case, after the appeal window: YES or UNKNOWN pays the claimant, NO pays the counterparty.
• An appealed case the arbiter did not rule on, after the arbitration window: the verdict stands and the appellant gets the bond back.

Refund a stuck case

If the oracle did not answer by answer_by_ns, anyone can return the stake to the claimant:

near contract call-function as-transaction psephex-court.testnet refund json-args '{"case_id":1}' prepaid-gas '50 Tgas' attached-deposit '0 NEAR' sign-as buyer-agent.testnet network-config testnet sign-with-keychain send

Events

The court logs NEP-297 events with standard psephex-court, version 1.0.0: opened, responded, asked, ask_failed, decided, appealed, arbitrated, settled, refunded, and payout_failed. A payout to an account that no longer exists goes to the other party instead, so no money stays locked in the court.