Kademlia peer discovery fails despite passing `.with_known_addresses(addrs)` in litep2p config

[jsdw]

If I instantiate litep2p like this:

// --- Kademlia ---
let kad_protocol = ProtocolName::from(format!("/{}/kad", genesis_hash_hex));
let (kad_config, mut kad_handle) = kademlia::ConfigBuilder::new()
    .with_protocol_names(vec![kad_protocol])
    .build();

// ...

    
// --- Build litep2p ---
let config = ConfigBuilder::new()
    .with_tcp(TcpConfig {
        listen_addresses: vec!["/ip4/0.0.0.0/tcp/0".parse().unwrap()],
        ..Default::default()
    })
    .with_libp2p_kademlia(kad_config)
    .with_notification_protocol(ba_config)
    .with_notification_protocol(grandpa_config)
    .with_request_response_protocol(warp_config)
    .with_request_response_protocol(sync_config)
    .with_known_addresses(bootnodes.clone().into_iter())
    .build();

And then wait to connect to some nodes, and then call:

kad_handle.find_node(PeerId::random()).await;

The FIND NODE query consistently fails. The kademlia logs looks like:

2026-03-10T11:50:04.462615Z DEBUG litep2p::ipfs::kademlia: starting kademlia event loop
2026-03-10T11:50:04.462682Z DEBUG litep2p::ipfs::kademlia: starting `FIND_NODE` query peer=PeerId("1AfxHqzipQLx2CsWZedwTfvg8QtJXEQ4vvog4B5v4AwCsk") query=QueryId(0)
2026-03-10T11:50:04.462777Z DEBUG litep2p::ipfs::kademlia::query: start `FIND_NODE` query query_id=QueryId(0) target=PeerId("1AfxHqzipQLx2CsWZedwTfvg8QtJXEQ4vvog4B5v4AwCsk") num_peers=0
2026-03-10T11:50:04.462860Z TRACE litep2p::ipfs::kademlia::query::find_node: query finished query=QueryId(0) pending=0 candidates=0
2026-03-10T11:50:04.462895Z DEBUG litep2p::ipfs::kademlia: query failed query=QueryId(0)
2026-03-10T11:50:04.931158Z TRACE litep2p::ipfs::kademlia: connection established peer=PeerId("12D3KooWS9ZcvRxyzrSf6p63QfTCWs12nLoNKhGux865crgxVA4H")
2026-03-10T11:50:04.931254Z TRACE litep2p::ipfs::kademlia::routing_table: on connection established key=Key { preimage: PeerId("12D3KooWS9ZcvRxyzrSf6p63QfTCWs12nLoNKhGux865crgxVA4H"), bytes: KeyBytes([83, 223, 240, 103, 46, 63, 164, 37, 193, 105, 137, 73, 153, 154, 190, 140, 114, 190, 75, 113, 53, 167, 190, 22, 117, 16, 205, 89, 8, 219, 231, 63]) } endpoint=Dialer { address: "/dns/boot-node.helikon.io/tcp/7070", connection_id: ConnectionId(2) }
2026-03-10T11:50:05.053687Z TRACE litep2p::ipfs::kademlia: connection established peer=PeerId("12D3KooWSz8r2WyCdsfWHgPyvD8GKQdJ1UAiRmrcrs8sQB3fe2KU")
2026-03-10T11:50:05.053887Z TRACE litep2p::ipfs::kademlia::routing_table: on connection established key=Key { preimage: PeerId("12D3KooWSz8r2WyCdsfWHgPyvD8GKQdJ1UAiRmrcrs8sQB3fe2KU"), bytes: KeyBytes([225, 110, 10, 19, 12, 50, 107, 79, 36, 31, 230, 219, 78, 10, 96, 142, 99, 32, 171, 40, 247, 193, 173, 74, 240, 162, 13, 137, 91, 221, 127, 4]) } endpoint=Dialer { address: "/dns/polkadot-bootnode-0.polkadot.io/tcp/30333", connection_id: ConnectionId(0) }
2026-03-10T11:50:14.498953Z DEBUG litep2p::ipfs::kademlia: starting `FIND_NODE` query peer=PeerId("1AY9sD5jc98AxF7zCmhA2yDapdV5AJc2BbNtEpE9aCcwLW") query=QueryId(1)
2026-03-10T11:50:14.499105Z DEBUG litep2p::ipfs::kademlia::query: start `FIND_NODE` query query_id=QueryId(1) target=PeerId("1AY9sD5jc98AxF7zCmhA2yDapdV5AJc2BbNtEpE9aCcwLW") num_peers=0
2026-03-10T11:50:14.499167Z TRACE litep2p::ipfs::kademlia::query::find_node: query finished query=QueryId(1) pending=0 candidates=0
2026-03-10T11:50:14.499183Z DEBUG litep2p::ipfs::kademlia: query failed query=QueryId(1)
2026-03-10T11:50:14.499201Z TRACE litep2p::ipfs::kademlia: failed to dial peer peer=PeerId("12D3KooWKT4ZHNxXH4icMjdrv7EwWBkfbz5duxE5sdJKKeWFYi5n") addresses=["/dns/boot.stake.plus/tcp/30333/p2p/12D3KooWKT4ZHNxXH4icMjdrv7EwWBkfbz5duxE5sdJKKeWFYi5n"]
2026-03-10T11:50:14.499248Z TRACE litep2p::ipfs::kademlia::routing_table: on dial failure key=Key { preimage: PeerId("12D3KooWKT4ZHNxXH4icMjdrv7EwWBkfbz5duxE5sdJKKeWFYi5n"), bytes: KeyBytes([81, 82, 89, 99, 244, 128, 26, 239, 7, 167, 165, 199, 100, 205, 100, 171, 98, 122, 249, 69, 40, 229, 226, 24, 193, 119, 129, 188, 73, 10, 201, 117]) } addresses=["/dns/boot.stake.plus/tcp/30333/p2p/12D3KooWKT4ZHNxXH4icMjdrv7EwWBkfbz5duxE5sdJKKeWFYi5n"]
2026-03-10T11:50:14.833020Z TRACE litep2p::ipfs::kademlia: connection established peer=PeerId("12D3KooWHJBMZgt7ymAdTRtadPcGXpJw79vBGe8z53r9JMkZW7Ha")
2026-03-10T11:50:14.833073Z TRACE litep2p::ipfs::kademlia::routing_table: on connection established key=Key { preimage: PeerId("12D3KooWHJBMZgt7ymAdTRtadPcGXpJw79vBGe8z53r9JMkZW7Ha"), bytes: KeyBytes([233, 121, 85, 104, 93, 234, 82, 199, 3, 213, 14, 187, 252, 74, 70, 164, 146, 84, 30, 42, 252, 60, 75, 34, 17, 184, 242, 78, 225, 219, 199, 233]) } endpoint=Dialer { address: "/dns/polkadot-bootnode.turboflakes.io/tcp/30300", connection_id: ConnectionId(3) }
2026-03-10T11:50:34.500610Z DEBUG litep2p::ipfs::kademlia: starting `FIND_NODE` query peer=PeerId("1AWTVvEVPR7EA2JhsBe395JC7F3AXg8DDbFqFQPNHELNqz") query=QueryId(2)
2026-03-10T11:50:34.500761Z DEBUG litep2p::ipfs::kademlia::query: start `FIND_NODE` query query_id=QueryId(2) target=PeerId("1AWTVvEVPR7EA2JhsBe395JC7F3AXg8DDbFqFQPNHELNqz") num_peers=0
2026-03-10T11:50:34.500844Z TRACE litep2p::ipfs::kademlia::query::find_node: query finished query=QueryId(2) pending=0 candidates=0
2026-03-10T11:50:34.500861Z DEBUG litep2p::ipfs::kademlia: query failed query=QueryId(2)

If I then modify the kademlia config to also provide it a list of known addresses, ie:

let kad_protocol = ProtocolName::from(format!("/{}/kad", genesis_hash_hex));
let (kad_config, mut kad_handle) = kademlia::ConfigBuilder::new()
    .with_protocol_names(vec![kad_protocol])
    .with_known_peers(bootnodes.clone().into_iter().collect())
    .build();

Then everything works as expected and peers are discovered.

My hopes would be that:

1. The addresses passed to the litep2p config via .with_known_addresses(bootnodes.clone().into_iter()) should be forwarded on / used by Kademlia as needed, or
2. If I don't add any known addresses anywhere, then when I dial peers like litep2p.dial_address(addr).await, then those addresses should be usable if I later do a kademlia query.

I am a litep2p newbie though so I could well be holding things wrong :)