getBlockHeaders

Overview

The getBlockHeaders endpoint allows you to retrieve beacon block headers from the Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Chain. These headers contain important information about the chain's progress and state.

Example use cases:

1. Chain Monitoring: Developers and network administrators can use this endpoint to monitor the progress and health of the Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Chain.
2. Validator Operations: Validators can retrieve beacon block headers to perform various operations, such as proposing and attesting to blocks.

Parameters

Returns

• execution_optimistic (boolean): true if the response references an unverified execution payload. Optimistic information may be invalidated at a later time. If the field is not present, assume the false value.
• finalized (boolean): If the response mentions the chain's final history picked by forks, it's true. Without the field, more calls are needed to compare the requested epoch with the final checkpoint.
• data (object array): The data array contains a list of beacon block headers, where each header has the following structure:
  • root (string, hex): The root is a hexadecimal string representing the root hash of the beacon block header. It follows the pattern: ^0x[a-fA-F0-9]{64}$.
  • canonical (boolean): true if the block header is considered canonical, indicating it's part of the main chain.
  • header (object): The header object contains detailed information about the beacon block header.
    • message (array): The BeaconBlockHeader object
      • slot (string): The slot to which this block corresponds
      • proposer_index (string): The index of validator in validator registry
      • parent_root (string): The signing merkle root of the parent BeaconBlock
      • state_root (string): The tree hash merkle root of the BeaconState for the BeaconBlock
      • body_root (string): The tree hash merkle root of the BeaconBlockBody for the BeaconBlock
    • signature (string): The signature

Request Example

// Import necessary libraries and modules
import { TatumSDK, Ethereum, Network } from '@tatumio/tatum'

// Initialize the Tatum SDK with Ethereum-specific parameters
const tatum = (await TatumSDK.init) < Ethereum > { network: Network.ETHEREUM }

// Retrieve beacon block headers using the getBlockHeaders method
const beaconHeaders = await tatum.rpc.beacon.v1.getBlockHeaders()

// Destroy Tatum SDK - needed for stopping background jobs
await tatum.destroy()