The perps trade on Iridium too, at Hyperliquid's book prices and under Hyperliquid's own rules: the leverage tiers, the hourly funding, each market's real fee, the open-interest caps. That is not a second product bolted on. It is what makes the options usable, because most of what people do with options involves the underlying.
One margin account
Hold a long perp on its own and the margin is Hyperliquid's: a share of the notional that depends on the leverage tier. Buy a put against it and the pair's maximum loss is the put's premium plus the distance from your entry to the strike, however far the perp falls. Iridium margins the pair as one position, so the requirement collapses to that maximum loss plus a buffer, rather than the perp's full margin plus the put's premium.
The buffer scales with leverage and includes a volatility shock, a quarter of implied vol with a floor of two points, so the margin is honest about the fact that the option's price can move against you before expiry.
Covered calls and cash-secured puts
Selling to open is allowed when the short option is covered or capped. A call is covered by the perp units you hold in that underlying; a put is secured by cash. Spreads are allowed when every short leg is matched by a long leg of the same expiry, so the maximum loss is known at entry. There are no naked short options.
The margin on a short leg is its maximum loss at expiry, per underlying and expiry. For a covered call that is zero beyond the perp you already hold. For a credit spread it is the width of the spread less the credit received.
The cover lock
If you have sold calls against a perp, the perp cannot be reduced below the units covering them. The ticket says so, and offers to close the calls first and then the perp. The lock exists because a covered call that loses its cover is a naked call, and the account would otherwise be short an option it cannot cover.
Liquidation, with the options in mind
Liquidation on Iridium runs on the perps only, at 1.5 times Hyperliquid's maintenance margin, in chunks sized the way Hyperliquid liquidates, with a cooldown between them. The part of a perp position that is not hedging an option is reduced first; the part that hedges one goes last. Options are never liquidated: an account that falls below two-thirds of maintenance is taken over by the house, which buys back every short option and closes the perps, and the house's own capital stands behind that as the backstop. The order of operations is published because it is the thing a trader most needs to know before leverage is involved.
The position card
Every underlying shows one card: your perp, each of your options with its delta and its bid, net exposure, margin used, the liquidation price, and the combined payoff at the next expiry. Hedge to neutral is one button. Close is one button. The whole point of one account is that the whole position is in one place.