Oracle Heartbeat

Overview

An oracle heartbeat is a feed configuration that triggers periodic publication even when market movement remains below the normal deviation threshold. It prevents an apparently unchanged value from remaining on-chain indefinitely. The interval is measured alongside the feed’s last update time, source timestamp, and deviation rule. A heartbeat does not guarantee exact delivery at the deadline, because reporter participation, transmission, congestion, or block inclusion may add delay.

Applications should enforce their own maximum-age check rather than assuming any returned value is fresh. Integrators must obtain the heartbeat for the exact feed and network, monitor missed updates, and define fallback behavior. A shorter interval improves freshness but increases reporting cost, while a longer interval reduces cost and expands stale-data exposure. Trust assumptions include data providers, node operators, signers, transmitters, contracts, governance, and any emergency controls. Multiple reporters do not create independence when they rely on the same exchange, API, infrastructure provider, or market methodology.

High-value actions may require delayed execution, secondary evidence, or a circuit breaker rather than automatic acceptance. Client software should enforce freshness and deviation limits, validate the expected feed or contract, and define fallback behavior for missing, disputed, or implausible data.

Audit records should retain the exact report, block reference, source configuration, and rule that consumed it. This distinction is essential when a technically valid oracle message produces an economically incorrect payment, liquidation, or release decision. A report can be validly published on-chain while still being stale, mis-scaled, or unsuitable for the decision that consumes it. Oracle Heartbeat should specify the reported value or event, authorized sources, aggregation method, update trigger, timestamp, decimals, and validity conditions.