Block Best Practices

Recommendations

Use getBlocks() to fetch multiple blocks in a single request, reducing network overhead.

Blocks are immutable once confirmed, making them safe to cache indefinitely.

Enable prefetchTxs to include transaction data in the response when required, avoiding additional queries.

Queries for future or non-existent block numbers will fail; validate block heights before fetching.

Process blocks in parallel across multiple threads to maximize indexer performance.

Rely on witnesses from known validators when verifying block finality.

For critical transactions, wait until sufficient witnesses have attested to the block before considering it final.

Recently produced blocks may not yet have witnesses; implement retry logic for pending blocks.

Use the limit and page parameters when querying blocks with numerous witnesses.

Once a block is confirmed, its witnesses are immutable and safe to cache.

Higher confirmation counts significantly reduce reorganization risk for critical transactions.

Track blocks containing important transactions and verify their validity regularly.

Design applications to recover state rather than fail when reorganizations occur.

Clear cached block and transaction data when a reorganization is detected to prevent stale reads.

Inform users promptly when their transactions are impacted by a reorganization.

Gas parameters do not change frequently. Rely on the built-in caching mechanism and avoid excessive calls to gasParameters().

The medium fee rate provides a good balance between confirmation speed and cost for most transactions.

Check current fee rates before executing expensive operations to avoid unexpected costs during periods of high network congestion.

Add a 10-20% buffer to gas estimates to account for fee fluctuations between estimation and broadcast.

Schedule UTXO consolidation and batch operations during periods of low network fees to minimize costs.