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Data Structures

Here we describe the data structures in the CometBFT blockchain and the rules for validating them.

The CometBFT blockchain consists of a short list of data types:

Block

A block consists of a header, transactions, votes (the commit), and a list of evidence of misbehavior (ie. signing conflicting votes).

Name Type Description Validation
Header Header Header corresponding to the block. This field contains information used throughout consensus and other areas of the protocol. To find out what it contains, visit header Must adhere to the validation rules of header
Data Data Data contains a list of transactions. The contents of the transaction is unknown to CometBFT. This field can be empty or populated, but no validation is performed. Applications can perform validation on individual transactions prior to block creation using checkTx.
Evidence EvidenceList Evidence contains a list of evidence of misbehavior committed by validators. Can be empty, but when populated the validations rules from evidenceList apply
LastCommit Commit LastCommit includes one vote for every validator. All votes must either be for the previous block, nil or absent. If a vote is for the previous block it must have a valid signature from the corresponding validator. The sum of the voting power of the validators that voted must be greater than 2/3 of the total voting power of the complete validator set. The number of votes in a commit is limited to 10000 (see types.MaxVotesCount). Must be empty for the initial height and must adhere to the validation rules of commit.

Execution

Once a block is validated, it can be executed against the state.

The state follows this recursive equation:

state(initialHeight) = InitialState
state(h+1) <- Execute(state(h), ABCIApp, block(h))

where InitialState includes the initial consensus parameters and validator set, and ABCIApp is an ABCI application that can return results and changes to the validator set (TODO). Execute is defined as:

func Execute(state State, app ABCIApp, block Block) State {
 // Function ApplyBlock executes block of transactions against the app and returns the new root hash of the app state,
 // modifications to the validator set and the changes of the consensus parameters.
 AppHash, ValidatorChanges, ConsensusParamChanges := app.ApplyBlock(block)

 nextConsensusParams := UpdateConsensusParams(state.ConsensusParams, ConsensusParamChanges)
 return State{
  ChainID:         state.ChainID,
  InitialHeight:   state.InitialHeight,
  LastResults:     abciResponses.DeliverTxResults,
  AppHash:         AppHash,
  LastValidators:  state.Validators,
  Validators:      state.NextValidators,
  NextValidators:  UpdateValidators(state.NextValidators, ValidatorChanges),
  ConsensusParams: nextConsensusParams,
  Version: {
   Consensus: {
    AppVersion: nextConsensusParams.Version.AppVersion,
   },
  },
 }
}

Validating a new block is first done prior to the prevote, precommit & finalizeCommit stages.

The steps to validate a new block are:

  • Check the validity rules of the block and its fields.
  • Check the versions (Block & App) are the same as in local state.
  • Check the chainID's match.
  • Check the height is correct.
  • Check the LastBlockID corresponds to BlockID currently in state.
  • Check the hashes in the header match those in state.
  • Verify the LastCommit against state, this step is skipped for the initial height.
    • This is where checking the signatures correspond to the correct block will be made.
  • Make sure the proposer is part of the validator set.
  • Validate bock time.
    • Make sure the new blocks time is after the previous blocks time.
    • Calculate the medianTime and check it against the blocks time.
    • If the blocks height is the initial height then check if it matches the genesis time.
  • Validate the evidence in the block. Note: Evidence can be empty

Header

A block header contains metadata about the block and about the consensus, as well as commitments to the data in the current block, the previous block, and the results returned by the application:

Name Type Description Validation
Version Version Version defines the application and block versions being used. Must adhere to the validation rules of Version
ChainID String ChainID is the ID of the chain. This must be unique to your chain. ChainID must be less than 50 bytes.
Height uint64 Height is the height for this header. Must be > 0, >= initialHeight, and == previous Height+1
Time Time The timestamp can be computed using PBTS or BFT Time algorithms. In case of PBTS, it is the time at which the proposer has produced the block (the value of its local clock). In case of BFT Time, it is equal to the weighted median of timestamps present in the previous commit. Time must be larger than the Time of the previous block header. The timestamp of the first block should not be smaller than the genesis time. When BFT Time is used, it should match the genesis time (since there's no votes to compute the median with).
LastBlockID BlockID BlockID of the previous block. Must adhere to the validation rules of blockID. The first block has block.Header.LastBlockID == BlockID{}.
LastCommitHash slice of bytes ([]byte) MerkleRoot of the lastCommit's signatures. The signatures represent the validators that committed to the last block. The first block has an empty slices of bytes for the hash. Must be of length 32
DataHash slice of bytes ([]byte) MerkleRoot of the hash of transactions. Note: The transactions are hashed before being included in the merkle tree, the leaves of the Merkle tree are the hashes, not the transactions themselves. Must be of length 32
ValidatorHash slice of bytes ([]byte) MerkleRoot of the current validator set. The validators are first sorted by voting power (descending), then by address (ascending) prior to computing the MerkleRoot. Must be of length 32
NextValidatorHash slice of bytes ([]byte) MerkleRoot of the next validator set. The validators are first sorted by voting power (descending), then by address (ascending) prior to computing the MerkleRoot. Must be of length 32
ConsensusHash slice of bytes ([]byte) Hash of the protobuf encoded consensus parameters. Must be of length 32
AppHash slice of bytes ([]byte) Arbitrary byte array returned by the application after executing and committing the previous block. It serves as the basis for validating any merkle proofs that comes from the ABCI application and represents the state of the actual application rather than the state of the blockchain itself. The first block's block.Header.AppHash is given by InitChainResponse.app_hash. This hash is determined by the application, CometBFT can not perform validation on it.
LastResultHash slice of bytes ([]byte) LastResultsHash is the root hash of a Merkle tree built from DeliverTxResponse responses (Log,Info, Codespace and Events fields are ignored). Must be of length 32. The first block has block.Header.ResultsHash == MerkleRoot(nil), i.e. the hash of an empty input, for RFC-6962 conformance.
EvidenceHash slice of bytes ([]byte) MerkleRoot of the evidence of Byzantine behavior included in this block. Must be of length 32
ProposerAddress slice of bytes ([]byte) Address of the original proposer of the block. Validator must be in the current validatorSet. Must be of length 20

Version

NOTE: that this is more specifically the consensus version and doesn't include information like the P2P Version. (TODO: we should write a comprehensive document about versioning that this can refer to)

Name type Description Validation
Block uint64 This number represents the block version and must be the same throughout an operational network Must be equal to block version being used in a network (block.Version.Block == state.Version.Consensus.Block)
App uint64 App version is decided on by the application. Read here block.Version.App == state.Version.Consensus.App

BlockID

The BlockID contains two distinct Merkle roots of the block. The BlockID includes these two hashes, as well as the number of parts (ie. len(MakeParts(block)))

Name Type Description Validation
Hash slice of bytes ([]byte) MerkleRoot of all the fields in the header (ie. MerkleRoot(header). hash must be of length 32
PartSetHeader PartSetHeader Used for secure gossiping of the block during consensus, is the MerkleRoot of the complete serialized block cut into parts (ie. MerkleRoot(MakeParts(block))). Must adhere to the validation rules of PartSetHeader

See MerkleRoot for details.

PartSetHeader

Name Type Description Validation
Total int32 Total amount of parts for a block Must be > 0
Hash slice of bytes ([]byte) MerkleRoot of a serialized block Must be of length 32

Part

Part defines a part of a block. In CometBFT blocks are broken into parts for gossip.

Name Type Description Validation
index int32 Total amount of parts for a block Must be >= 0
bytes bytes MerkleRoot of a serialized block Must be of length 32
proof Proof MerkleRoot of a serialized block Must be of length 32

Time

CometBFT uses the Google.Protobuf.Timestamp format, which uses two integers, one 64 bit integer for Seconds and a 32 bit integer for Nanoseconds. Time is aligned with the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

Data

Data is just a wrapper for a list of transactions, where transactions are arbitrary byte arrays:

Name Type Description Validation
Txs Matrix of bytes ([][]byte) Slice of transactions. Validation does not occur on this field, this data is unknown to CometBFT

Commit

Commit is a simple wrapper for a list of signatures, with one for each validator. It also contains the relevant BlockID, height and round:

Name Type Description Validation
Height int64 Height at which this commit was created. Must be >= 0.
Round int32 Round that the commit corresponds to. Must be >= 0.
BlockID BlockID The blockID of the corresponding block. If Height > 0, then it cannot be the BlockID of a nil block.
Signatures Array of CommitSig Array of commit signatures that correspond to current validator set. If Height > 0, then the length of signatures must be > 0 and adhere to the validation of each individual Commitsig.

ExtendedCommit

ExtendedCommit, similarly to Commit, wraps a list of votes with signatures together with other data needed to verify them. In addition, it contains the verified vote extensions, one for each non-nil vote, along with the extension signatures.

Name Type Description Validation
Height int64 Height at which this commit was created. Must be >= 0
Round int32 Round that the commit corresponds to. Must be >= 0
BlockID BlockID The blockID of the corresponding block. Must adhere to the validation rules of BlockID.
ExtendedSignatures Array of ExtendedCommitSig The current validator set's commit signatures, extension, and extension signatures. Length of signatures must be > 0 and adhere to the validation of each individual ExtendedCommitSig

CommitSig

CommitSig represents a signature of a validator, who has voted either for nil, a particular BlockID or was absent. It's a part of the Commit and can be used to reconstruct the vote set given the validator set.

Name Type Description Validation
BlockIDFlag BlockIDFlag Represents the validators participation in consensus: its vote was not received, voted for the block that received the majority, or voted for nil Must be one of the fields in the BlockIDFlag enum
ValidatorAddress Address Address of the validator Must be of length 20
Timestamp Time This field will vary from CommitSig to CommitSig. It represents the timestamp of the validator. Time
Signature Signature Signature corresponding to the validators participation in consensus. The length of the signature must be > 0 and < than 64

NOTE: ValidatorAddress and Timestamp fields may be removed in the future (see ADR-25).

ExtendedCommitSig

ExtendedCommitSig represents a signature of a validator that has voted either for nil, a particular BlockID or was absent. It is part of the ExtendedCommit and can be used to reconstruct the vote set given the validator set. Additionally it contains the vote extensions that were attached to each non-nil precommit vote. All these extensions have been verified by the application operating at the signing validator's node.

Name Type Description Validation
BlockIDFlag BlockIDFlag Represents the validators participation in consensus: its vote was not received, voted for the block that received the majority, or voted for nil Must be one of the fields in the BlockIDFlag enum
ValidatorAddress Address Address of the validator Must be of length 20
Timestamp Time This field will vary from CommitSig to CommitSig. It represents the timestamp of the validator.
Signature Signature Signature corresponding to the validators participation in consensus. Length must be > 0 and < 64
Extension bytes Vote extension provided by the Application running on the sender of the precommit vote, and verified by the local application. Length must be zero if BlockIDFlag is not Commit
ExtensionSignature Signature Signature of the vote extension. Length must be > 0 and < than 64 if BlockIDFlag is Commit, else 0

BlockIDFlag

BlockIDFlag represents which BlockID the signature is for.

enum BlockIDFlag {
  BLOCK_ID_FLAG_UNKNOWN = 0; // indicates an error condition
  BLOCK_ID_FLAG_ABSENT  = 1; // the vote was not received
  BLOCK_ID_FLAG_COMMIT  = 2; // voted for the block that received the majority
  BLOCK_ID_FLAG_NIL     = 3; // voted for nil
}

Vote

A vote is a signed message from a validator for a particular block. The vote includes information about the validator signing it. When stored in the blockchain or propagated over the network, votes are encoded in Protobuf.

Name Type Description Validation
Type SignedMsgType The type of message the vote refers to Must be PrevoteType or PrecommitType
Height int64 Height for which this vote was created for Must be > 0
Round int32 Round that the commit corresponds to. Must be >= 0
BlockID BlockID The blockID of the corresponding block.
Timestamp Time Timestamp represents the time at which a validator signed.
ValidatorAddress bytes Address of the validator Length must be equal to 20
ValidatorIndex int32 Index at a specific block height corresponding to the Index of the validator in the set. Must be > 0
Signature bytes Signature by the validator if they participated in consensus for the associated block. Length must be > 0 and < 64
Extension bytes Vote extension provided by the Application running at the validator's node. Length can be 0
ExtensionSignature bytes Signature for the extension Length must be > 0 and < 64

CanonicalVote

CanonicalVote is for validator signing. This type will not be present in a block. Votes are represented via CanonicalVote and also encoded using protobuf via type.SignBytes which includes the ChainID, and uses a different ordering of the fields.

Name Type Description Validation
Type SignedMsgType The type of message the vote refers to Must be PrevoteType or PrecommitType
Height int64 Height in which the vote was provided. Must be > 0
Round int64 Round in which the vote was provided. Must be >= 0
BlockID string ID of the block the vote refers to.
Timestamp string Time of the vote.
ChainID string ID of the blockchain running consensus.

For signing, votes are represented via CanonicalVote and also encoded using protobuf via type.SignBytes which includes the ChainID, and uses a different ordering of the fields.

We define a method Verify that returns true if the signature verifies against the pubkey for the SignBytes using the given ChainID:

func (vote *Vote) Verify(chainID string, pubKey crypto.PubKey) error {
 if !bytes.Equal(pubKey.Address(), vote.ValidatorAddress) {
  return ErrVoteInvalidValidatorAddress
 }
 v := vote.ToProto()
 if !pubKey.VerifyBytes(types.VoteSignBytes(chainID, v), vote.Signature) {
  return ErrVoteInvalidSignature
 }
 return nil
}

CanonicalVoteExtension

Vote extensions are signed using a representation similar to votes. This is the structure to marshall in order to obtain the bytes to sign or verify the signature.

Name Type Description Validation
Extension bytes Vote extension provided by the Application. Can have zero length
Height int64 Height in which the extension was provided. Must be >= 0
Round int64 Round in which the extension was provided. Must be >= 0
ChainID string ID of the blockchain running consensus.

Proposal

Proposal contains height and round for which this proposal is made, BlockID as a unique identifier of proposed block, timestamp, and POLRound (a so-called Proof-of-Lock (POL) round) that is needed for termination of the consensus. If POLRound >= 0, then BlockID corresponds to the block that was or could have been locked in POLRound. The message is signed by the validator private key.

Name Type Description Validation
Type SignedMsgType Represents a Proposal SignedMsgType. Must be ProposalType
Height uint64 Height for which this vote was created for Must be >= 0
Round int32 Round that the commit corresponds to. Must be >= 0
POLRound int64 Proof of lock round. Must be >= -1
BlockID BlockID The blockID of the corresponding block. BlockID
Timestamp Time Timestamp represents the time at which the block was produced. Time
Signature slice of bytes ([]byte) Signature by the validator if they participated in consensus for the associated bock. Length of signature must be > 0 and < 64

SignedMsgType

Signed message type represents a signed messages in consensus.

enum SignedMsgType {

  SIGNED_MSG_TYPE_UNKNOWN = 0;
  // Votes
  SIGNED_MSG_TYPE_PREVOTE   = 1;
  SIGNED_MSG_TYPE_PRECOMMIT = 2;

  // Proposal
  SIGNED_MSG_TYPE_PROPOSAL = 32;
}

Signature

Signatures in CometBFT are raw bytes representing the underlying signature.

See the signature spec for more.

EvidenceList

EvidenceList is a simple wrapper for a list of evidence:

Name Type Description Validation
Evidence Array of Evidence List of verified evidence Validation adheres to individual types of Evidence

Evidence

Evidence in CometBFT is used to indicate breaches in the consensus by a validator.

More information on how evidence works in CometBFT can be found here

DuplicateVoteEvidence

DuplicateVoteEvidence represents a validator that has voted for two different blocks in the same round of the same height. Votes are lexicographically sorted on BlockID.

Name Type Description Validation
VoteA Vote One of the votes submitted by a validator when they equivocated VoteA must adhere to Vote validation rules
VoteB Vote The second vote submitted by a validator when they equivocated VoteB must adhere to Vote validation rules
TotalVotingPower int64 The total power of the validator set at the height of equivocation Must be equal to nodes own copy of the data
ValidatorPower int64 Power of the equivocating validator at the height Must be equal to the nodes own copy of the data
Timestamp Time Time of the block where the equivocation occurred Must be equal to the nodes own copy of the data

LightClientAttackEvidence

LightClientAttackEvidence is a generalized evidence that captures all forms of known attacks on a light client such that a full node can verify, propose and commit the evidence on-chain for punishment of the malicious validators. There are three forms of attacks: Lunatic, Equivocation and Amnesia. These attacks are exhaustive. You can find a more detailed overview of this here

Name Type Description Validation
ConflictingBlock LightBlock Read Below Must adhere to the validation rules of lightBlock
CommonHeight int64 Read Below must be > 0
Byzantine Validators Array of Validators validators that acted maliciously Read Below
TotalVotingPower int64 The total power of the validator set at the height of the infraction Must be equal to the nodes own copy of the data
Timestamp Time Time of the block where the infraction occurred Must be equal to the nodes own copy of the data

LightBlock

LightBlock is the core data structure of the light client. It combines two data structures needed for verification (signedHeader & validatorSet).

Name Type Description Validation
SignedHeader SignedHeader The header and commit, these are used for verification purposes. To find out more visit light client docs Must not be nil and adhere to the validation rules of signedHeader
ValidatorSet ValidatorSet The validatorSet is used to help with verify that the validators in that committed the infraction were truly in the validator set. Must not be nil and adhere to the validation rules of validatorSet

The SignedHeader and ValidatorSet are linked by the hash of the validator set(SignedHeader.ValidatorsHash == ValidatorSet.Hash().

SignedHeader

The SignedhHeader is the header accompanied by the commit to prove it.

Name Type Description Validation
Header Header Header Header cannot be nil and must adhere to the Header validation criteria
Commit Commit Commit Commit cannot be nil and must adhere to the Commit criteria

ValidatorSet

Name Type Description Validation
Validators Array of validator List of the active validators at a specific height The list of validators can not be empty or nil and must adhere to the validation rules of validator
Proposer validator The block proposer for the corresponding block The proposer cannot be nil and must adhere to the validation rules of validator

Validator

Name Type Description Validation
Address Address Validators Address Length must be of size 20
Pubkey slice of bytes ([]byte) Validators Public Key must be a length greater than 0
VotingPower int64 Validators voting power cannot be < 0
ProposerPriority int64 Validators proposer priority. This is used to gauge when a validator is up next to propose blocks No validation, value can be negative and positive

Address

Address is a type alias of a slice of bytes. The address is calculated by hashing the public key using sha256 and truncating it to only use the first 20 bytes of the slice.

const (
  TruncatedSize = 20
)

func SumTruncated(bz []byte) []byte {
  hash := sha256.Sum256(bz)
  return hash[:TruncatedSize]
}

Proof

Name Type Description Field Number
total int64 Total number of items. 1
index int64 Index item to prove. 2
leaf_hash bytes Hash of item value. 3
aunts repeated bytes Hashes from leaf's sibling to a root's child. 4

ConsensusParams

Name Type Description Field Number
block BlockParams Parameters limiting the block and gas. 1
evidence EvidenceParams Parameters determining the validity of evidences of Byzantine behavior. 2
validator ValidatorParams Parameters limiting the types of public keys validators can use. 3
version VersionParams The version of specific components of CometBFT. 4
synchrony SynchronyParams Parameters determining the validity of block timestamps. 6
feature FeatureParams Parameters for configuring the height from which features are enabled. 7

BlockParams

Name Type Description Field Number
max_bytes int64 Maximum size of a block, in bytes. 1
max_gas int64 Maximum gas wanted by transactions included in a block. 2

The max_bytes parameter must be greater or equal to -1, and cannot be greater than the hard-coded maximum block size, which is 100MB. If set to -1, the limit is the hard-coded maximum block size.

The max_gas parameter must be greater or equal to -1. If set to -1, no limit is enforced.

Blocks that violate max_gas were potentially proposed by Byzantine validators. CometBFT does not enforce the maximum wanted gas for committed blocks. It is responsibility of the application handling blocks whose wanted gas exceeds the configured max_gas when processing the block.

EvidenceParams

Name Type Description Field Number
max_age_num_blocks int64 Max age of evidence, in blocks. 1
max_age_duration google.protobuf.Duration Max age of evidence, in time. 2
max_bytes int64 Maximum size in bytes of evidence allowed to be included in a block. 3

The recommended value of max_age_duration parameter should correspond to the application's "unbonding period" or other similar mechanism for handling Nothing-At-Stake attacks.

The recommended formula for calculating max_age_num_blocks is max_age_duration / {average block time}.

ValidatorParams

Name Type Description Field Number
pub_key_types repeated string List of accepted public key types. Uses same naming as PubKey.Type. 1

The pub_key_types parameter uses ABCI public keys naming, not Amino names.

VersionParams

Name Type Description Field Number
app uint64 The ABCI application version. 1

The app parameter was named app_version in CometBFT 0.34.

ABCIParams

Name Type Description Field Number
vote_extensions_enable_height int64 The height where vote extensions will be enabled. 1

The ABCIParams type has been deprecated from CometBFT v1.0.

FeatureParams

Name Type Description Field Number
vote_extensions_enable_height int64 First height during which vote extensions will be enabled. 1
pbts_enable_height int64 Height at which Proposer-Based Timestamps (PBTS) will be enabled. 2

From the configured height, and for all subsequent heights, the corresponding feature will be enabled. Cannot be set to heights lower or equal to the current blockchain height. A value of 0 indicates that the feature is disabled.

SynchronyParams

Name Type Description Field Number
precision google.protobuf.Duration Bound for how skewed a proposer's clock may be from any validator on the network while still producing valid proposals. 1
message_delay google.protobuf.Duration Bound for how long a proposal message may take to reach all validators on a network and still be considered valid. 2

These parameters are part of the Proposer-Based Timestamps (PBTS) algorithm. For more information on the relationship of the synchrony parameters to block timestamps validity, refer to the PBTS specification.