FAQs | blocktorch

What is blocktorch?

🐲🔥Blocktorch as an end-to-end observability platform empowers engineering teams to be more productive, take data-driven decisions, and scale dApps while ensuring a great user experience. 🐲🔥 Blocktorch provides powerful tools for exploring, analyzing, and visualizing data of decentralized applications. With features such as a query engine, log explorer, dashboards, monitors, and SLOs, Blocktorch enables users to gain valuable insights into their decentralized application.

What is observability?

Observability is a key aspect of modern software systems that enables developers and operators to understand the internal state of a system by monitoring, analyzing, and visualizing its external outputs. This concept is particularly important for complex, distributed systems, where traditional monitoring approaches might not provide sufficient insights into the system's behavior and performance. Observability encompasses three main pillars: metrics, logs, and traces, which together provide a comprehensive view of the system's health, performance, and potential issues. By implementing effective observability practices, teams can proactively identify and address problems, optimize resource allocation, and improve the overall reliability and user experience of their software systems.

How do I get started with blocktorch?

Sign-up & log in
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Do I need to pay to use blocktorch?

No, everyone can use blocktorch for free with certain usage limits. Pricing tiers can be found . If you are using blocktorch for free and want to give something back, we'd appreciate your feedback and to spread some love on socials like X, Farcaster and Hey ❤️

Is my dApps data private at blocktorch?

The privacy of data within Blocktorch is treated with utmost care.

Publicly Accessible Data

For on-chain data accessed through the nodes of public blockchains, the information is publicly accessible. This includes data such as transaction details, contract addresses, and other information that is inherently public due to the nature of public blockchains.

Private Data in Blocktorch

However, Blocktorch also handles private data, such as off-chain data sources, user data, and privately uploaded data like private ABIs (Application Binary Interfaces). This private data is securely stored within Blocktorch and is accessible only to users who have been invited to the same project. Access to this data is restricted, ensuring that only authorized users can view and interact with it.

What are monitors and targets?

Monitors in Blocktorch are used to track specific metrics or calculate Service Level Objectives (SLOs) based on the set targets. SLOs are performance and reliability targets that help you define and measure the quality of your blockchain ecosystem. By setting and monitoring SLOs, you can assess the health of your system and ensure that it meets the desired performance standards, enabling you to make informed decisions on improvements, resource allocation, and incident response. To learn more about monitors in blocktorch .

What are traces?

Traces are a representation of the end-to-end execution path of a transaction or event within a distributed system, such as a blockchain network. They provide valuable insights into the performance, latency, and behavior of your system. Traces consist of two main components: end-to-end traces and stack traces.

End-to-end traces

An end-to-end trace is a collection of spans, where each span represents a single operation or unit of work within the system. Spans are linked together by parent-child relationships, forming a hierarchical structure that captures the complete execution path of a transaction or event. In Blocktorch the starting point of the end-to-end trace is data from your which gets linked with the transaction data from the smart contract execution on the blockchain. Stack Trace

A stack trace is a detailed representation of the execution path within a single function or method, such as a smart contract execution. It includes information about the function calls, line numbers, and any relevant error messages. Stack traces are particularly useful for debugging and diagnosing issues within your smart contracts, as they provide a comprehensive view of the execution path and any errors that may have occurred.

In Blocktorch, you can view the full stack trace in the , which provides a complete breakdown of the smart contract execution

Can I have/be part of multiple projects?

No. Currently a user can only be part of 1 project. To have multiple projects right now you will need to log in with different wallets or emails, or .

ATTENTION: if you have an exisiting project and join another project through an vitInviting others or by clicking a you will leave your existing project and join the other project.

How can I share search results or visualisations with others?

Search results can be shared by simply to the person you want to share it with. To make others see your visualisations/monitors invite them to your project. Invites can be sent by clicking the "+" in the navbar or going to your settings page. ATTENTION: when sharing your search URL the other person clicking the link will become part of your project. Only invite people/share with people that you trust and want to be part of your project. For the recipient: if your have an existing blocktorch project by joining another project (through clicking shared search link or following invitation) you will lose your existing project.

Can I use blocktorch with multiple blockchains?

Yes, Blocktorch is designed to support multiple blockchains, allowing you to explore, analyze, and visualize data from various chains. To use Blocktorch with multiple blockchains, simply from the chains you would like to see the data from. Currently blocktorch supports the following natively.

How can I see off-chain data in blocktorch?

Currently supported off-chain data sources in blocktorch are , , and . if you have specific off-chain data sources you need to be supported asap.

Blocktorch utilizes , an open-source observability framework that allows for seamless integration with a variety of monitoring, tracing, and logging tools. If you are using any web2 observability tools and would like to connect it as a datasource to blocktorch please .

Is blocktorch suitable for public and private blockchains?

Blocktorch can be used with both public and private blockchains as well as , providing a comprehensive solution for analyzing and monitoring blockchain data regardless of the network type. For private blockchains, ensure that you have the appropriate permissions and access to the data. .

I am using web2 observability tools, is blocktorch compatible?

Yes, Blocktorch is compatible with Web2 observability tools like Datadog, Dynatrace, Sentry, and Splunk. Blocktorch utilizes , an open-source observability framework that allows for seamless integration with a variety of monitoring, tracing, and logging tools. By leveraging Open Telemetry, Blocktorch can easily send data to your preferred observability platform, providing a unified view of both your blockchain and traditional web services. To integrate Blocktorch with your chosen observability tool .

How can I contact the blocktorch team ?

If you need support, have questions or to give us feedback feel free to reach out to us in the following channels: