> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://arc-doc.mintlify.site/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Reading Paths: Four Routes Through Arc's Documentation

> Four curated routes through this site: domain understanding, system architecture, real-world scenarios, or interview prep. Pick the one that fits your goal.

<span className="arc-eyebrow">Orientation · pick one</span>

This site has about forty pages across four tabs. Reading it front to back works, but most people want one of these four routes.

***

<Tabs>
  <Tab title="The domain">
    <span className="arc-eyebrow arc-eyebrow--dim">\~50 minutes · no code</span>

    You want to understand how stablecoin cross-border payments work, well enough to evaluate a claim about them. This path never opens a source file.

    <Steps>
      <Step title="Why corridors cost so much">
        Correspondent banking, pre-funding, and where the 8.78% actually goes. [Read →](/primer/why-corridors-cost-so-much)
      </Step>

      <Step title="How stablecoins work">
        Issuance, redemption, reserves, and the difference between a peg and a promise. [Read →](/primer/how-stablecoins-work)
      </Step>

      <Step title="Settlement and finality">
        Why "instant" is a marketing word and finality is a probability curve. [Read →](/primer/settlement-and-finality)
      </Step>

      <Step title="The 2026 regulatory picture">
        GENIUS Act rulemaking, MiCA's transitional cliff, Kenya's VASP Act, Nigeria's ISA. [Read →](/primer/regulation)
      </Step>

      <Step title="The case against">
        The BIS argument that stablecoins fail the three tests of sound money: taken seriously, not strawmanned. [Read →](/primer/the-case-against)
      </Step>
    </Steps>

    Finish at [the bibliography](/primer/bibliography) if you want the primary sources.
  </Tab>

  <Tab title="The system">
    <span className="arc-eyebrow arc-eyebrow--dim">\~90 minutes · code and diagrams</span>

    You want to read the architecture. Order matters here: the ledger has to exist before money can move.

    <Steps>
      <Step title="Architecture overview">
        Six bounded contexts, one deployable, an event bus between them. [Read →](/architecture/overview)
      </Step>

      <Step title="Why money is never a float">
        The single decision the rest of the system is built on. [Read →](/architecture/money)
      </Step>

      <Step title="The ledger">
        Chart of accounts, the balance rule, the worked EUR→KES example. The core. [Read →](/architecture/ledger)
      </Step>

      <Step title="Contexts and events">
        The outbox, at-least-once delivery, and how boundaries are mechanically enforced. [Read →](/architecture/contexts-and-events)
      </Step>

      <Step title="The chain layer">
        Chain-agnostic driver, deterministic simulator, reorg rollback. [Read →](/architecture/chain-layer)
      </Step>

      <Step title="The settlement saga">
        Five steps, five compensations, and why order matters. [Read →](/architecture/settlement-saga)
      </Step>

      <Step title="What the tests prove">
        Property-based, mutation-checked, chaos-injected. The proof layer. [Read →](/architecture/testing)
      </Step>
    </Steps>

    Then walk a [flow](/flows/consumer-remittance) end to end to see it assembled.
  </Tab>

  <Tab title="IRL Scenarios">
    <span className="arc-eyebrow arc-eyebrow--dim">\~40 minutes · start anywhere</span>

    Seven narratives. Each opens on a symptom, walks the diagnosis, and lands on the specific piece of Arc that prevents it. They are self-contained and can be read in any order, but if you read only one:

    <Card title="The journal that balanced and lied" icon="triangle-exclamation" href="/stories/the-journal-that-balanced-and-lied">
      A mutation that broke the audit trail and passed all sixteen tests. The best argument on this site for why balance is necessary but not sufficient.
    </Card>

    The rest, roughly by difficulty:

    * [The cent that vanished](/stories/the-cent-that-vanished): rounding residuals
    * [The payout that paid twice](/stories/the-payout-that-paid-twice): idempotency under timeout
    * [The cut-off that cost a day](/stories/the-cutoff-that-cost-a-day): batch rails and compounding delay
    * [The fastest chain that settled last](/stories/the-fastest-chain-that-settled-last): block time is not finality
    * [The quote that aged](/stories/the-quote-that-aged): stale rates as unhedged loss
    * [The boundary that wasn't](/stories/the-boundary-that-wasnt): an architecture rule that silently didn't hold
  </Tab>

  <Tab title="Interview prep">
    <span className="arc-eyebrow arc-eyebrow--dim">\~2 hours · active recall</span>

    You have a payments, ledger, or infrastructure interview. Do this in order and answer out loud before reading the answer.

    <Steps>
      <Step title="Read the ledger and the saga">
        You need [the ledger](/architecture/ledger) and [the saga](/architecture/settlement-saga) in your head first. Everything else builds on them.
      </Step>

      <Step title="Work the question banks">
        [Ledger](/practice/ledger) · [Distributed systems](/practice/distributed-systems) · [Chain and settlement](/practice/chain-and-settlement) · [Compliance](/practice/compliance)
      </Step>

      <Step title="Self-check">
        [Ledger quiz](/practice/quiz-ledger) · [Settlement quiz](/practice/quiz-settlement)
      </Step>

      <Step title="Steal the scenarios">
        A concrete failure narrative beats an abstract answer in every interview. [The IRL scenarios](/stories) are there to be retold.
      </Step>
    </Steps>

    <Note>
      The strongest answers on this site are the ones about what *didn't* work: the mutation that passed, the boundary rule that didn't fire. Interviewers remember those.
    </Note>
  </Tab>
</Tabs>

***

## Conventions used throughout

<div className="arc-claim">
  A teal block is a **load-bearing claim the code enforces**: there is a test or a database
  constraint behind it.
</div>

<div className="arc-gap">
  An amber block is a **known gap**: something modelled but not wired, or a limitation accepted on
  purpose. These are stated rather than hidden.
</div>

Account codes appear as structured strings, `asset.float.bank.EUR`, `liability.customer.va_1.KES`: because a journal should be legible in a log or a `psql` session without joining anything.

All monetary figures are integer minor units. `10000n` is €100.00. There are no floats anywhere near money, and [there is a lint rule that makes sure](/architecture/money).