SIMD-0307: Add Block Header

Author: jherrera-jump

proposals/0307-add-block-header.md

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+---
+simd: '0307'
+title: Add Client Info to Block Header
+authors:
+  - jherrera-jump (Firedancer)
+category: Standard
+type: Core
+status: Review
+created: 2025-06-17
+feature: <pubkey>
+development:
+  - Anza - TBD
+---
+
+## Summary
+
+Add a block header to solana blocks and expose header fields in the
+`getBlock` rpc endpoint.
+
+## Motivation
+
+For the purposes of historical monitoring, development, and auditing, it is
+important to know exactly who produced a block and when it was produced.
+Currently, this information can be partially inferred from Gossip and from vote
+timestamps. Unfortunately there are some problems with the current approach:
+
+- The information from gossip is ephemeral. Currently a peer needs to record
+  and persist it. This may cause synchronization issues when matching client
+  updates in gossip with the correct slot.
+- Gossip lacks important information that may useful for monitoring (e.g.
+  scheduler used, mods, configuration settings, etc).
+- Vote timestamps have a granularity of 1-second, so they cannot be used to
+  estimate block duration.
+- Vote timestamps will be removed with Alpenglow.
+
+This SIMD solves these issues by including relevant information in a static
+block header.
+
+## New Terminology
+
+No new terms, but the following definitions are given for clarity:
+
+- Client - The software run by leaders to interface with a solana cluster.
+  (e.g. `agave` or `frankendancer`)
+- Block Producer - The client that produced a given block
+- Scheduler - The system responsible for processing incoming transactions and
+  ordering them for block construction.
+- Forward Error Correction set (FEC set) - A collection of shreds. At a high
+  level, this is a construct that leverages Reed-Solomon encoding to overcome
+  the problem of data loss from packet drops.
+- Shreds - A fixed chunk of encoded raw block data.
+- Entry Batch - An array of entries.
+- Entry - An array of transactions.
+
+## Detailed Design
+
+### Data Layout
+
+Solana blocks are organized in abstraction layers not entirely unlike the
+arrangement of a typical network packet (e.g. MAC -> IP -> TCP -> HTTP). At the
+highest layer a block consists of some number (~100+) FEC sets. A single FEC
+set contains a handful of shreds (~32). Once sufficient shreds are available
+the raw block data is reconstructed and reinterpreted as an array of entry
+batches. Entry batches do not cross shred boundaries.
+
+This SIMD add the following header at the beginning of the raw block data. This
+puts it on the same abstraction layer as serialized entry batch data. Put
+differently, the serialized header will be prepended to the first serialized
+entry batch in the block.
+
+```
+< --       64 bits        -->
++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
+|      block_header_flag    |
++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
+|          version          |
++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
+|       header_length       |
++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
+| block_producer_time_nanos |
++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
+|     block_user_agent      |
+|                           |
+⋮                       +30 ⋮
++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
+|   ... future fields ...   |
++-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
+```
+
+- `block_header_flag: u64` will always be zero. The first 8 bytes of an entry
+batch are always a positive number (the number of entries in the batch), so
+this flag allows parsers to differentiate between a normal entry batch and one
+with a header prepended. Though not strictly necessary, this may facilitate
+parsing block data, and allows us to make the header optional if we ever need
+to.
+
+- `version: u64` is a positive integer which changes anytime a change is made to
+the header. The initial version will be 1.
+
+- `header_length: u64` is the length of the rest of the header in bytes (i.e.
+not including the `block_header_flag`, `version`, and `header_length` fields).
+
+- `block_producer_time_nanos: u64` is a nanosecond UNIX timestamp representing
+the time when the block producer became leader and started constructing the
+block.
+
+- `block_user_agent: [u8; 256]` is a string that provides identifying
+information about the block producer.
+
+- `future fields` any other fields that are deemed necessary in the future may
+be added with a corresponding change to `version` / `header_length`. For
+example, SIMD
+[0298](https://github.com/solana-foundation/solana-improvement-documents/pull/298)
+proposes a field header, which could be added as a subsequent SIMD (or folded
+into this one).
+
+### Header Field Specification
+
+Header fields will be unilaterally populated by their respective block producer
+without any enforced constraint on their contents. This SIMD includes the
+following fields in the header
+
+- `block_producer_time_nanos`: u64
+- `block_user_agent`: [u8; 256]
+
+Because it is desirable to maintain cluster-wide diagnostics this SIMD provides
+a suggested format for the `block_user_agent` string which includes basic
+information about the block producer. This should be an UTF-8 encoded, null
+terminated string. The null character should terminate valid UTF-8 data. Any
+data following the null character is ignored by parsers and may contain
+arbitrary information. It is expected that all producers use this format,
+though this will not be enforced. Clients that choose to opt out of the
+suggested format should set the first byte of the field to 0 (i.e. the null
+character). The format is loosely based on HTTP `user-agent` header format
+specification:
+
+```
+<product>/<product-version> <comment>
+```
+
+The first entry will always be the software client.
+
+```
+client/client_version <client_details> 
+```
+
+Options for `client` currently include:
+
+- `agave`
+- `frankendancer`
+- `firedancer`
+
+`client_version` should be consistent with the information stored on-chain (in
+`ConfigProgram`). Software forks (e.g. `jito-agave`) should put one of
+the 3 base clients and can specify details about the fork in the comment.
+
+The comment should be in parentheses and contain a semicolon separated
+list of flags. A flag has an unrestricted format, but should represent a
+feature that is contained and enabled in the client it describes.
+
+e.g.
+
+```
+agave/v2.2.15 (jito; doublezero; some-mod/v1.2.3)
+```
+
+Sometimes there may be software that coexists or runs alongside a validator
+client. For example, current client development aims to make the transaction
+scheduler modular, which would allow the transaction scheduler to be developed
+independently from the client codebase. Validator clients that use
+complementary software like this should add additional
+`<product>/<product-version> <comment>` entries in the user agent string.
+
+For example:
+
+```
+agave/v3.0.0 (doublezero) greedy-scheduler/v3 (mode:perf; another-flag)
+```
+
+### RPC Protocol Changes
+
+The `getBlock` RPC response will be extended to, optionally, include all header
+fields. The request will be extended with the `header` parameter, which lets
+the client signal that they want the header fields in the response. By default,
+header fields will be included in the response.
+
+Sample Request Payload
+
+```json
+{
+  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
+  "id": 1,
+  "method": "getBlock",
+  "params": [
+    378967388,
+    {
+      "encoding": "json",
+      "maxSupportedTransactionVersion": 0,
+      "transactionDetails": "full",
+      "rewards": false,
+      "header": true
+    }
+  ]
+}
+```
+
+Sample Response Payload
+
+```json
+{
+  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
+  "result": {
+    "blockHeight": 428,
+    "blockTime": null,
+    "blockhash": "3Eq21vXNB5s86c62bVuUfTeaMif1N2kUqRPBmGRJhyTA",
+    "parentSlot": 429,
+    "previousBlockhash": "mfcyqEXB3DnHXki6KjjmZck6YjmZLvpAByy2fj4nh6B",
+    "header": {
+        "blockProducerTimeNanos": 1750176982899968023,
+        "blockUserAgent": "agave/v3.0.0 (doublezero) greedy-scheduler/v3 (mode:perf; another-flag)",
+    },
+    "transactions": [
+      {
+        "meta": {
+          "err": null,
+          "fee": 5000,
+          "innerInstructions": [],
+          "logMessages": [],
+          "postBalances": [499998932500, 26858640, 1, 1, 1],
+          "postTokenBalances": [],
+          "preBalances": [499998937500, 26858640, 1, 1, 1],
+          "preTokenBalances": [],
+          "rewards": null,
+          "status": {
+            "Ok": null
+          }
+        },
+        "transaction": {
+          "message": {
+            "accountKeys": [
+              "3UVYmECPPMZSCqWKfENfuoTv51fTDTWicX9xmBD2euKe",
+              "AjozzgE83A3x1sHNUR64hfH7zaEBWeMaFuAN9kQgujrc",
+              "SysvarS1otHashes111111111111111111111111111",
+              "SysvarC1ock11111111111111111111111111111111",
+              "Vote111111111111111111111111111111111111111"
+            ],
+            "header": {
+              "numReadonlySignedAccounts": 0,
+              "numReadonlyUnsignedAccounts": 3,
+              "numRequiredSignatures": 1
+            },
+            "instructions": [
+              {
+                "accounts": [1, 2, 3, 0],
+                "data": "37u9WtQpcm6ULa3WRQHmj49EPs4if7o9f1jSRVZpm2dvihR9C8jY4NqEwXUbLwx15HBSNcP1",
+                "programIdIndex": 4
+              }
+            ],
+            "recentBlockhash": "mfcyqEXB3DnHXki6KjjmZck6YjmZLvpAByy2fj4nh6B"
+          },
+          "signatures": [
+            "2nBhEBYYvfaAe16UMNqRHre4YNSskvuYgx3M6E4JP1oDYvZEJHvoPzyUidNgNX5r9sTyN1J9UxtbCXy2rqYcuyuv"
+          ]
+        }
+      }
+    ]
+  },
+  "id": 1
+}
+```
+
+## Alternatives Considered
+
+- Do nothing
+  - We can't estimate block time / duration with sufficient granularity. We
+    won't be able to estimate at all when votes are changed in alpenglow.
+  - We will continue to have an incomplete, ephemeral record of who produced
+    blocks.
+- derive timestamp header field from consensus and enforce user agent format
+  - This can and probably should be implemented as a future SIMD. Meanwhile,
+    these fields are still useful since
+    1. most of the cluster is expected to
+    be honest, so monitoring tools may still use them for cluster-wide
+    analytics and
+    2. block producers still use these fields to self-monitor
+    their performance.
+- Send block producer information via gossip instead
+  - The information is short-lived and depends on physical network availability
+- Update this information in an on-chain account instead (e.g. ConfigProgram)
+  - Same issue as above, the information is short-lived.
+
+## Impact
+
+This change will enable more reliable monitoring and benchmarking for operators
+and for the community. Clients and indexers will need to extend both in-memory
+and long-term block storage to be aware of the new columns added to the block
+header. The client rpc engine will need to change to support the new fields.
+
+## Security Considerations
+
+- The header fields are untrusted and purely informational. Tools that expose
+  these fields to external users should clearly communicate their untrusted
+  nature.
+
+## Drawbacks
+
+- No expected drawbacks beyond minimal resource overhead.
+
+## Backwards Compatibility
+
+- RPC requests for old slots should properly document and return a suitable
+  default value (e.g. None).
+- Clients that don't implement this SIMD will reject new blocks because they
+will fail to parse the new header.
+- Because this header is mandatory, leaders that produce blocks without a
+header will skip, since the header is required.