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 # Pyth Beacon
 
-A Wormhole message relay for Pyth data
+**Beacon** is a highly available version of [Wormhole Spy](https://docs.wormhole.com/wormhole/explore-wormhole/spy). It
+connects to the Wormhole peer-to-peer gossip network, providing the Spy GRPC API to clients for fetching Wormhole VAAs.
+Beacon uses [NATS](https://nats.io/) as a message broker to aggregate VAAs from multiple clients, minimizing latency and
+maximizing availability.
+
+# Why Beacon?
+
+Beacon enhances the Wormhole Spy for high availability and reduced latency. By deploying multiple replicas, it mitigates
+the unpredictable latency of a single Spy instance due to the peer-to-peer network's peer selection algorithm. Beacon
+aggregates VAAs in a NATS stream while deduplicating them, ensuring minimal latency and maximum availability. It
+includes a health check mechanism to detect and address high latency issues.
+
+# How to use Beacon?
+
+To run Beacon, install `nats-server` and then run it using this command:
+
+```shell
+nats-server --jetstream
+```
+
+Configure Beacon by setting the required environment variables in [.envrc.sample](./.envrc.sample), including `NATS_URL`
+and `NATS_STREAM`. Then, start Beacon with the following command:
+
+```shell
+make run
+```
+
+Alternatively, you can use the Docker image of Beacon published [here](https://gallery.ecr.aws/pyth-network/beacon).
+
+# Using Beacon in Production
+
+For optimal performance, co-locate Beacon with the NATS server to minimize overal latency. Run multiple Beacon
+instances to increase availability and reduce latency, but be mindful that this will scale network traffic. Utilize the
+health check probe to monitor VAA latency and restart instances if they become unhealthy.