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feat(sequencer): catchup from base#3057

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feat(sequencer): catchup from base#3057
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Closes: #3016

Opus did a pretty good job. I'll be improving it.

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github-actions bot commented Feb 9, 2026

The latest Buf updates on your PR. Results from workflow CI / buf-check (pull_request).

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✅ passed⏩ skipped✅ passed✅ passedFeb 16, 2026, 2:54 PM

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Claude finished @julienrbrt's task in 2m 21s —— View job


Comprehensive Code Review

I've completed a thorough review of this sequencer catch-up implementation. The PR introduces a critical mechanism for sequencer recovery after downtime, but I've identified several serious issues that need to be addressed before merging.


🔴 Critical Issues

1. NON-MONOTONIC TIMESTAMPS (High Priority - Chain Halting Bug)

Location: pkg/sequencers/single/sequencer.go:369-378

The current implementation produces non-monotonic block timestamps, which will cause most blockchain execution layers to reject blocks and halt the chain.

Problem:

  • Multiple blocks can be produced for a single DA epoch (when transactions don't fit in one block)
  • All blocks from the same epoch get the identical timestamp (currentDAEndTime)
  • Empty DA epochs don't update currentDAEndTime, causing timestamp reuse
  • Most execution layers (EVM, Cosmos SDK, etc.) require strictly increasing timestamps

Example failure scenario:

Epoch 100: DA timestamp = 2026-02-16T10:00:00Z
Block 1 (epoch 100): timestamp = 2026-02-16T10:00:00Z ✓
Block 2 (epoch 100): timestamp = 2026-02-16T10:00:00Z ✗ REJECTED (same as parent)
→ Chain halts

Current broken logic:

if c.catchingUp.Load() {
    daEndTime := c.currentDAEndTime
    if !daEndTime.IsZero() {
        var remainingForcedTxs uint64
        if len(c.cachedForcedInclusionTxs) > 0 {
            remainingForcedTxs = uint64(len(c.cachedForcedInclusionTxs)) - c.checkpoint.TxIndex
        }
        timestamp = daEndTime.Add(-time.Duration(remainingForcedTxs) * time.Millisecond)
    }
}

Issues with this logic:

  1. Subtracting milliseconds is insufficient — multiple blocks can still have the same timestamp if they're from the same epoch
  2. Doesn't handle empty epochscurrentDAEndTime is never updated when there are no forced inclusion txs
  3. No validation that timestamps are actually monotonic

Recommended fix:
Track the last block timestamp and ensure each new block timestamp is strictly greater:

// Add to Sequencer struct:
lastBlockTimestamp atomic.Value // stores *time.Time

// In GetNextBatch:
timestamp := time.Now()
if c.catchingUp.Load() {
    daEndTime := c.currentDAEndTime
    if !daEndTime.IsZero() {
        timestamp = daEndTime
    }
    
    // Ensure monotonicity
    if lastTS := c.getLastBlockTimestamp(); !lastTS.IsZero() && !timestamp.After(lastTS) {
        // Increment by 1ms to maintain monotonicity
        timestamp = lastTS.Add(1 * time.Millisecond)
    }
}
c.setLastBlockTimestamp(timestamp)

2. DATA RACE on Catch-Up State (Medium-High Priority - Undefined Behavior)

Location: pkg/sequencers/single/sequencer.go:67-70

Problem:

  • currentDAEndTime is a time.Time struct (not atomic)
  • Accessed concurrently by:
    • GetNextBatch() (reads at line 370)
    • fetchNextDAEpoch() (writes at line 485)
    • IsCatchingUp() (potential indirect access)
  • No synchronization mechanism (mutex/atomic)

Impact:

  • Reading time.Time while it's being written is undefined behavior
  • Can result in corrupted timestamps
  • May cause invalid blocks or chain halt

Proof:

// Line 67-70: No atomic protection
catchingUp atomic.Bool
currentDAEndTime time.Time  // ❌ NOT THREAD-SAFE

Recommended fix:
Use atomic.Pointer[time.Time]:

// In struct:
currentDAEndTime atomic.Pointer[time.Time]

// Writing (fetchNextDAEpoch):
ts := forcedTxsEvent.Timestamp.UTC()
c.currentDAEndTime.Store(&ts)

// Reading (GetNextBatch):
if tsPtr := c.currentDAEndTime.Load(); tsPtr != nil {
    timestamp = *tsPtr
}

3. SYNCER DA HEIGHT ADVANCEMENT LOGIC MAY BE INCORRECT

Location: block/internal/syncing/syncer.go:780-806

Concern:
The syncer's DA height advancement logic during catch-up is complex and may have edge cases:

if event.DaHeight > newState.DAHeight {
    epochSize := s.genesis.DAEpochForcedInclusion
    gap := event.DaHeight - newState.DAHeight

    if epochSize > 0 && gap > epochSize {
        // Advance by one epoch
        _, epochEnd, _ := types.CalculateEpochBoundaries(...)
        nextEpochStart := epochEnd + 1
        if nextEpochStart > event.DaHeight {
            nextEpochStart = event.DaHeight  // Clamp
        }
        newState.DAHeight = nextEpochStart
    } else {
        newState.DAHeight = event.DaHeight
    }
}

Questions:

  1. What happens if CalculateEpochBoundaries returns unexpected values?
  2. Is the clamping logic at line 792-794 actually necessary? If so, when would it trigger?
  3. Could this cause state divergence between sequencer and syncer?

Recommendation: Add extensive integration tests covering:

  • Multiple blocks per epoch during catch-up
  • Empty epochs during catch-up
  • Boundary conditions (exactly 1 epoch gap, 2 epoch gap, etc.)

⚠️ High Priority Issues

4. MAGIC NUMBER FOR CATCH-UP DETECTION

Location: pkg/sequencers/single/sequencer.go:569

if missedEpochs <= 1 {
    // No catch-up needed
    return
}

Issue: The threshold 1 is hardcoded without explanation or configurability.

Questions:

  • Why is 1 the correct threshold?
  • What if a sequencer restarts during an epoch boundary?
  • Could this cause false negatives or false positives?

Recommendation: Make this a named constant with documentation:

const catchUpMinMissedEpochs = 1 // Catch-up only if >1 epoch behind

5. NO VALIDATION THAT CATCH-UP BLOCKS MATCH BASE SEQUENCING

Location: pkg/sequencers/single/sequencer.go and block/internal/syncing/syncer.go

Concern:
The PR's goal is to ensure catch-up blocks match what base sequencing would produce, but there's no validation of this claim:

  • No test comparing catch-up sequencer output vs. base sequencer output for the same epochs
  • No verification that timestamps actually align
  • No validation that transaction ordering is identical

Recommendation: Add integration test:

func TestSequencer_CatchUpMatchesBaseSequencing(t *testing.T) {
    // 1. Create base sequencer, let it run through epochs
    // 2. Record all blocks produced
    // 3. Create catch-up sequencer starting from same initial state
    // 4. Verify catch-up produces identical blocks (same txs, same timestamps)
}

6. INCOMPLETE ERROR HANDLING IN fetchNextDAEpoch

Location: pkg/sequencers/single/sequencer.go:480

return 0, fmt.Errorf("failed to retrieve forced inclusion transactions: %w", err)

Issue: Generic error handling doesn't distinguish between:

  • Temporary network failures (should retry)
  • Permanent DA layer errors (should halt)
  • Malformed data (should skip)

Impact: Could cause sequencer to halt on transient errors.


7. TEST QUALITY ISSUES

a) Excessive Console Logging

Location: Multiple test files (e.g., lines 1245, 1309, 1457, 1676)

logger := zerolog.New(zerolog.NewConsoleWriter())

Issue: Produces verbose output during test runs, making CI logs hard to read.

Fix: Use zerolog.NewTestWriter(t) or zerolog.Nop():

logger := zerolog.New(zerolog.NewTestWriter(t)) // Only logs on failure

b) Insufficient Coverage of Edge Cases

Missing tests for:

  • What happens when GetLatestDAHeight fails?
  • What happens when DA returns inconsistent timestamps?
  • Catch-up with very large gaps (100+ epochs)
  • Concurrent calls to GetNextBatch during catch-up
  • Sequencer restart mid-catch-up

📊 Medium Priority Issues

8. INEFFICIENT TRACING IMPLEMENTATION

Location: block/internal/da/tracing.go:10-14

func (t *tracingClient) GetLatestDAHeight(ctx context.Context) (uint64, error) {
    ctx, span := tracer.Start(ctx, "da.GetLatestDAHeight")
    defer span.End()
    return t.client.GetLatestDAHeight(ctx)
}

Issue: Creates a new span for every call, even though this is called frequently during catch-up detection.

Impact: Performance overhead, cluttered traces.

Recommendation: Consider rate-limiting or sampling for high-frequency operations.


9. COMMENT QUALITY AND DOCUMENTATION

Good:

  • Extensive comments explaining catch-up logic (lines 56-65, 436-442)
  • Clear explanation of DA height advancement (lines 765-779)

Needs Improvement:

  • No documentation on how to test catch-up functionality
  • No explanation of when catch-up would happen in production
  • Missing sequence diagrams or state machine documentation

Recommendation: Add docs/catch-up-mechanism.md explaining:

  1. When catch-up triggers
  2. State transitions during catch-up
  3. How to verify correct behavior
  4. Known limitations

✅ Strengths

  1. Well-structured catch-up detection using epoch-based logic
  2. Comprehensive test coverage for basic scenarios
  3. Good separation of concerns between sequencer and syncer
  4. Proper use of atomic operations for catchingUp flag
  5. Clear logging during catch-up transitions

🔧 Recommendations Summary

Must Fix Before Merge:

  1. Fix non-monotonic timestamps (chain halting bug)
  2. Fix data race on currentDAEndTime
  3. ⚠️ Verify syncer DA height logic with extensive tests

Should Fix Before Merge:

  1. Document magic number for catch-up threshold
  2. Add integration test comparing catch-up vs. base sequencing
  3. Improve error handling in fetchNextDAEpoch
  4. Fix test logging (use NewTestWriter)

Nice to Have:

  1. Optimize tracing for high-frequency operations
  2. Add comprehensive documentation
  3. Add edge case tests

📝 Additional Notes

  • Code coverage: The 64.54% patch coverage is concerning given the complexity of this feature. Critical paths like timestamp generation and DA height advancement should have 100% coverage.
  • Integration testing: The PR would benefit from end-to-end tests using the scripts/test-catchup.sh script (which was added but may not be integrated into CI).
  • Backward compatibility: No concerns — this is additive functionality.

Overall Assessment: This is a well-architected feature addressing a critical gap in sequencer resilience. However, the timestamp monotonicity bug is a showstopper that will cause chain halts in production. The data race is also serious. Once these issues are resolved, this will be a valuable addition to the codebase.


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Summary of Changes

Hello @julienrbrt, I'm Gemini Code Assist1! I'm currently reviewing this pull request and will post my feedback shortly. In the meantime, here's a summary to help you and other reviewers quickly get up to speed!

This pull request implements a critical "catch-up" feature for the sequencer, designed to enhance its resilience and consistency following periods of inactivity or downtime. By intelligently replaying missed Data Availability (DA) epochs, the sequencer can resynchronize its state, ensuring that all forced inclusion transactions are processed in the correct order and with accurate timestamps, thereby maintaining a consistent view of the blockchain's history, even when operating in a decentralized environment. This mechanism allows the sequencer to seamlessly transition back to normal operation without compromising data integrity.

Highlights

  • Sequencer Catch-up Mechanism: Introduced a new mechanism allowing the sequencer to "catch up" on missed Data Availability (DA) epochs after extended downtime.
  • Forced Inclusion Priority: During catch-up, the sequencer temporarily processes only forced inclusion transactions, ensuring consistency with base sequencing nodes and temporarily skipping mempool transactions.
  • DA Height Synchronization: Modified syncer.go to incrementally advance the DAHeight by one epoch during catch-up, preventing issues with forced inclusion transaction verification.
  • Timestamp Alignment: Block timestamps generated during catch-up are now aligned with the DA epoch's end timestamp for historical accuracy.
  • Comprehensive Testing: Added extensive unit tests covering various catch-up scenarios, including detection, mempool skipping, timestamp usage, exit conditions, and multi-epoch replay.

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Changelog
  • block/internal/syncing/syncer.go
    • Updated the logic for DAHeight updates to handle large discrepancies between event.DaHeight and newState.DAHeight. When a significant gap (more than one epoch) is detected, newState.DAHeight is now advanced by exactly one epoch per block, rather than jumping directly to event.DaHeight. This ensures correct verification of forced inclusion transactions during sequencer catch-up.
    • Added detailed comments explaining the new DAHeight update strategy and its importance for catch-up blocks and forced inclusion verification.
  • pkg/sequencers/single/sequencer.go
    • Added catchingUp (boolean) and currentDAEndTime (time.Time) to the Sequencer struct to manage the catch-up state and store the DA epoch's end timestamp.
    • Modified GetNextBatch to conditionally skip fetching transactions from the mempool when the sequencer is in catchingUp mode. This ensures that only forced inclusion transactions are included in batches during catch-up.
    • Updated GetNextBatch to use sequencer.currentDAEndTime as the block timestamp when catchingUp is true, aligning block timestamps with the historical DA epoch.
    • Introduced a public IsCatchingUp() method to query the sequencer's current catch-up status.
    • Modified fetchNextDAEpoch to store the forcedTxsEvent.Timestamp in currentDAEndTime and to call a new updateCatchUpState method to manage the catchingUp flag. It also now exits catch-up mode if StatusHeightFromFuture is returned by the DA client.
    • Implemented a new private method updateCatchUpState that determines whether the sequencer should be in catch-up mode based on the timestamp of the fetched DA epoch. It enters catch-up if the epoch timestamp is significantly in the past (more than one epoch's wall-clock duration) and exits if it's recent.
  • pkg/sequencers/single/sequencer_test.go
    • Added a comprehensive suite of tests (TestSequencer_CatchUp_...) to validate the new catch-up functionality. These tests cover:
    • Detection of old epochs and entering catch-up mode.
    • Skipping mempool transactions during catch-up.
    • Using DA epoch timestamps for blocks during catch-up.
    • Exiting catch-up mode when the DA head is reached (either a recent epoch or HeightFromFuture).
    • Scenarios where catch-up is not triggered (recent epoch, no forced inclusion configured).
    • Multi-epoch replay scenarios.
    • Correct advancement of the internal checkpoint (DAHeight) during catch-up.
Activity
  • The pull request addresses and closes issue https://github.com/evstack/ev-node/issues/3016.
  • The author indicates that this work builds upon a previous attempt by "Opus", aiming for improvement.
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codecov bot commented Feb 9, 2026

Codecov Report

❌ Patch coverage is 64.54545% with 39 lines in your changes missing coverage. Please review.
✅ Project coverage is 61.97%. Comparing base (b92e97e) to head (a30ea68).

Files with missing lines Patch % Lines
block/internal/syncing/syncer.go 22.22% 13 Missing and 1 partial ⚠️
block/internal/da/tracing.go 0.00% 10 Missing ⚠️
block/internal/da/client.go 0.00% 9 Missing ⚠️
pkg/sequencers/single/sequencer.go 91.78% 4 Missing and 2 partials ⚠️
Additional details and impacted files
@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##             main    #3057      +/-   ##
==========================================
+ Coverage   61.92%   61.97%   +0.04%     
==========================================
  Files         111      111              
  Lines       11113    11218     +105     
==========================================
+ Hits         6882     6952      +70     
- Misses       3492     3527      +35     
  Partials      739      739              
Flag Coverage Δ
combined 61.97% <64.54%> (+0.04%) ⬆️

Flags with carried forward coverage won't be shown. Click here to find out more.

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Code Review

This pull request introduces a robust catch-up mechanism for the sequencer, designed to handle restarts after extended downtime. While the overall approach for consuming and verifying catch-up blocks in the syncer, including the incremental advancement of DAHeight, is well-implemented and tested, the implementation of catch-up mode in the single sequencer has significant flaws. Specifically, it produces non-monotonic block timestamps when multiple blocks are generated for a single DA epoch or when empty epochs are encountered, which will likely cause the execution layer to reject blocks and halt the chain. Additionally, there is a data race on the new catch-up state fields due to a lack of synchronization primitives. Minor suggestions for code clarity and testing experience were also noted.

Comment on lines 362 to 365
timestamp := time.Now()
if c.catchingUp && !c.currentDAEndTime.IsZero() {
timestamp = c.currentDAEndTime
}
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security-high high

During catch-up mode, the sequencer uses the timestamp from the last fetched DA epoch as the block timestamp. However, multiple blocks can be produced for a single DA epoch (e.g., if the epoch contains many transactions that don't fit in one block). In this case, all blocks produced for that epoch will have the exact same timestamp (c.currentDAEndTime). Furthermore, if an empty DA epoch is encountered, c.currentDAEndTime is not updated, causing the next block to reuse the timestamp from the previous non-empty epoch.

Most blockchain execution layers (like EVM) require that each new block has a timestamp strictly greater than its parent. If the sequencer produces multiple blocks with the same timestamp, the execution layer will reject them, halting the block production process and causing a Denial of Service.

Comment on lines 60 to 63
catchingUp bool
// currentDAEndTime is the DA epoch end timestamp from the last fetched epoch.
// Used as the block timestamp during catch-up to match based sequencing behavior.
currentDAEndTime time.Time
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security-medium medium

The fields catchingUp and currentDAEndTime are accessed concurrently without proper synchronization. GetNextBatch and fetchNextDAEpoch (which update these fields) can be called by the block production loop, while IsCatchingUp() can be called concurrently by other components (e.g., RPC, monitoring, or metrics).

In Go, concurrent read/write access to non-atomic fields is a data race, which leads to undefined behavior. Specifically, a race on time.Time (which is a struct) can result in a corrupted timestamp being read, potentially leading to invalid blocks and a Denial of Service.

Comment on lines 533 to 535
if catchUpThreshold < 30*time.Second {
catchUpThreshold = 30 * time.Second
}
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medium

The value 30*time.Second is used as a minimum threshold for the catch-up logic. To improve readability and maintainability, consider defining this as a named constant at the package level, for example: const minCatchUpThreshold = 30 * time.Second, and using that constant here. This makes the intent of the value clearer and centralizes its definition.

// This test uses maxBytes to limit how many txs are fetched, triggering the unprocessed txs scenario.
func TestSequencer_CatchUp_DetectsOldEpoch(t *testing.T) {
ctx := context.Background()
logger := zerolog.New(zerolog.NewConsoleWriter())
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medium

Using zerolog.New(zerolog.NewConsoleWriter()) in tests can lead to verbose output in the console during test runs. It's generally better to use a logger that integrates with the testing framework, such as zerolog.New(zerolog.NewTestWriter(t)), which only shows logs for failed tests, or zerolog.Nop() if logs are not needed. This practice is followed in other new tests in this file (e.g., TestSequencer_CatchUp_UsesDATimestamp). Applying this consistently would improve the developer experience. This comment also applies to lines 1309, 1457, and 1676.

Suggested change
logger := zerolog.New(zerolog.NewConsoleWriter())
logger := zerolog.New(zerolog.NewTestWriter(t))

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[FEATURE] Sequencer catchup on restart from base

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