Querying network data and browsing activity
Development status: Experimental implementation exists — An experimental implementation exists; this page describes the intended public developer capability. In an internal prototype, an experimental interface for submitting transactions and querying node state exists, together with an experimental block and transaction browsing interface for internal testing; richer explorers are being explored. None of these is publicly reachable, their interfaces are not documented, data read from them is neither final nor confidential, and nothing is publicly available for live use.
Before you read: Data and state: how information is recorded and retrieved.
How would I read network state, look up transactions and follow activity? Once released, applications are intended to do all three through documented interfaces. Today, experimental interfaces for these kinds of reading exist only for internal testing: none is publicly reachable, and none is documented. This page describes the kinds of reading the network is intended to support, states what exists experimentally and where its limits lie, and explains what a query result can and cannot tell an application.
Kinds of reading the network is intended to support
The intended design supports four kinds of reading:
- Querying state — reading the current recorded value of something an application cares about.
- Looking up blocks and transactions — finding whether and where a transaction was recorded, and what result was recorded for it.
- Following activity — being told about new blocks or transactions as they occur, instead of asking repeatedly.
- Browsing — a human-readable view of blocks and transactions, often called an explorer.
A related need — obtaining checkable evidence that a value is part of recorded state — is covered on Committed state and inclusion proofs.
What exists today
Status of this section: Experimental implementation exists — internal testing only; not publicly reachable.
- Submitting and querying. An experimental interface for submitting transactions and querying node state exists in an internal prototype. It is used for internal testing and is not publicly reachable. Its families are summarised on Interfaces and their status.
- Browsing. An experimental block and transaction browsing interface exists for internal testing. It is not publicly reachable.
- Following activity. The experimental interface includes a way to follow new activity, for internal testing only. No delivery or ordering guarantee is claimed for it.
- Nothing public. There is no public endpoint, explorer or network; see Networks and environments.
- Nothing documented. Interface style, methods, parameters, formats and limits are not documented, and no access-control property is claimed for any of these interfaces.
Explorers
Status of this section: Being explored — no explorer is publicly available.
An explorer is a human-readable view of blocks and transactions. Beyond the experimental browsing interface used for internal testing:
- Richer public explorers are being explored.
- Explorers that would show some information only to authorised viewers are being explored. What such explorers would show, and how access would be decided, is not described. Who may see which data is the subject of Visibility controls and selective disclosure.
- No explorer is publicly available.
What a query result can and cannot tell you
A query result is easy to over-read. Keep these limits in mind when designing around one:
- It is one node’s report. A query returns what the node you asked has recorded. How far a plain result can be trusted depends on that node.
- It is not final. An experimental finality status query exists, but it reports nothing as final, because the finality component is not yet connected; see Agreement and finality status.
- It is not checkable evidence. A plain query result is the node’s report, not something another party can check. An inclusion proof is the intended way to check that a value is part of recorded state.
- It is not confidential. Data in the experimental implementation is not confidential: confidentiality features are simulated or switched off. Querying confidential data is a separate intended capability, described on Querying confidential data.
- Its history is not documented. How much history a node keeps and serves is not documented.
- Lookup is not described. How data is organised for lookup (indexing) is not described in this documentation.
Intended developer experience
Status of this section: Planned — described conditionally; no interface is released.
Once these capabilities are implemented, enabled and publicly released, applications would be expected to read state, look up transactions and follow activity through documented interfaces that carry a version identity. Typical uses would include:
- showing users the recorded status of their submissions, while making clear that a recorded result is not yet final;
- reconciling an application’s own records with recorded network data;
- building dashboards that summarise activity relevant to an application.
Other readers would rely on reading capabilities differently:
- Prospective operators would check their own node’s condition through status and metrics surfaces, described on Node monitoring and observability.
- Assurance readers, such as auditors and regulators, would have no public record to inspect until a public network exists.
Until then, do not build against the experimental interfaces: they are internal and will change. General advice on planning around interfaces before any release is on Interfaces and their status.
Assumptions, trust and limitations
- A node reports its own view. Trust in a plain result depends on the node queried, which is why checkable evidence is described separately.
- The experimental interfaces serve internal testing only. Results are not final and not confidential, and no availability, delivery or rate guarantee is offered.
- The experimental implementation is an early prototype and must not be relied on for security or production use.
Not yet available, and how this page will grow
Interface reference, public endpoints and explorers are not yet available. Further technical reference is not yet available. Reference material would appear with a supported release and be linked from Interfaces and their status. Status labels would change only with release evidence.
What this page does not claim
This page does not name or describe any endpoint, method, interface style, parameter, format, limit, delivery guarantee or indexing design. It claims no access control for any interface and no compatibility with other platforms’ interfaces, and it does not claim that any query result is final, confidential or checkable. Anything not stated here as available should be treated as unavailable.
Related pages
- Interfaces and their status — the interface families that exist experimentally and where reference would appear.
- Committed state and inclusion proofs — checkable evidence that a value is part of recorded state.
- Querying confidential data — the separate, intended SQL-style experience for confidential data.
- Node monitoring and observability — status and metrics surfaces for operators.
- Networks and environments — why no public endpoint or network exists today.
Glossary
References
No approved public references yet.
