Midnight-blocklog (English)

A tool for Midnight nodes that displays the Aura block production schedule and records it in SQLite.

※This tool is currently in beta. Specifications may change and backward-incompatible changes may occur before the official release.

This tool auto-detects the Aura public key from the node keystore, verifies that this node holds the corresponding secret key via author_hasKey, then calculates and records the assigned slots for the current session (referred to as “epoch” here for convenience).

What it does

• Calculates your assigned Aura slots in the current epoch (session), displays them, and stores them in SQLite as schedule
• In watch mode (mblog block --watch), tracks the chain and updates the status. It waits until the next session, and at the boundary it calculates and stores the assigned slots for the new epoch.
  • schedule (planned)
  • mint (observed on best head)
  • finality (observed on finalized)
• Stores Authority set information per epoch (hash/length, start/end slots, etc.)
• Supports output timezone selection and colored output (auto-detected via TTY)

Requirements

• midnight-node must be started with the following flags (WS RPC enabled --rpc-methods=Unsafe --unsafe-rpc-external --rpc-port 9944
• Rust (cargo) build environment

Install Rust (rustup)

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
source "$HOME/.cargo/env"
rustup toolchain install stable
rustup default stable
rustc -V
cargo -V

Build dependencies (Linux)

Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y build-essential pkg-config libssl-dev

Install (clone this repository and run cargo install)

git clone https://github.com/Midnight-Scripts/Midnight-blocklog.git
cd Midnight-blocklog
git checkout <latest_tag_name>
cargo install --path . --bin mblog --locked --force

mblog is typically installed to ~/.cargo/bin/mblog.

Usage

1) Show help

mblog --help

Output (actual --help):

Usage: mblog <COMMAND>

Commands:
  block  Show Aura slot schedule (use --watch to monitor)
  log    Show stored blocks from SQLite

Options

Options are provided per subcommand.

mblog block

• --ws <WS>: WS RPC endpoint (optional; default: ws://127.0.0.1:9944)
• --keystore-path <KEYSTORE_PATH>: Node keystore directory (required)
• --epoch-size <EPOCH_SIZE>: Number of slots per epoch (optional; default: 1200)
• --lang <LANG>: Language for fixed messages (optional; ja | en; default: en)
• --tz <TZ>: Output timezone (optional; default: UTC)
  • UTC / local / +HH:MM / -HH:MM
  • Unix only: IANA timezones such as Asia/Tokyo (sets TZ internally and uses system tzdata)
• --color <auto|always|never>: Colored output (optional; default: auto)
• --db <DB>: SQLite DB path (optional; default: ./mblog.db)
• --no-store: Do not write to SQLite (optional; logs only; --db path is not required)
• --ariadne-endpoint <ARIADNE_ENDPOINT>: Ariadne JSON-RPC endpoint used for sidechain registration checks (optional; default: https://rpc.testnet-02.midnight.network)
• --ariadne-insecure: Accept invalid TLS certs for Ariadne endpoint (optional)
• --no-registration-check: Disable sidechain registration check (optional)
• --watch: Continuous monitoring (optional; keeps running without exiting)
• --output-json: Output schedule JSON to stdout (optional; cannot be used with --watch; exits after printing)
• --current: Output the current epoch schedule (requires --output-json)
• --next: Output the next epoch schedule (requires --output-json)

mblog log

• --db <DB>: SQLite DB path (optional; default: ./mblog.db)
• --epoch <EPOCH>: Epoch number to display (optional; default: latest)
• --tz <TZ>: Scheduled time timezone (optional; default: UTC)

See mblog block --help and mblog log --help for the authoritative list.

2) Schedule DB Save, Display Time Zone, Enable Monitoring Mode

mblog block \
  --keystore-path /path/to/your/keystore \
  --db /path/to/midnight-dir/mblog.db \
  --tz Asia/Tokyo \
  --watch

Example results (may vary depending on time zone settings)

 Midnight-blocklog - Version: 0.3.1
--------------------------------------------------------------
epoch:245527 (start_slot:294632400 / end_slot:294633599)
      author: 0x52cc8d7dbb573b0fa3ba8e12545affa48313c3e5e0dc0b07515fd52419373360
   ADA Stake: 2816841.654532 ADA (2816841654532 lovelace)
Registration: true (Registered)

Your Block Schedule List
-------------------------
#1 slot 294633422: 2026-01-07T19:42:12+04:00 (UTC 2026-01-07T15:42:12+00:00)
Total=1

Waiting for next session... (next_epoch=245528)
progress [============================= ] 99% (slot 294633599/294633599)

If there is no schedule, it will display No schedule for this session.

3) JSON schedule output (stdout)

When --output-json is set (instead of --watch), mblog prints the schedule as JSON to stdout (date respects --tz) and exits.
Note: --output-json does not write to SQLite (it ignores --db and does not create/update the DB).

Examples:

# Current epoch schedule as JSON (date respects --tz)
mblog block --keystore-path /path/to/keystore --tz UTC --output-json --current

# Next epoch schedule as JSON (date respects --tz)
mblog block --keystore-path /path/to/keystore --tz UTC --output-json --next

Sample output:

{
  "epoch": 245555,
  "schedule": [
    { "slot": 294663162, "date": "2026-01-10T12:34:56Z" }
  ]
}

4) Show stored blocks (SQLite)

# Latest epoch (default)
mblog log --db /path/to/midnight-dir/mblog.db

# Specific epoch
mblog log --db /path/to/midnight-dir/mblog.db --epoch 245525

Example results (may vary depending on time zone settings)

Midnight Block Log
-------------------

epoch: 245528
|===|==========|==============|===========|===============|===========================|=======================|
| # | status   | block_number | slot      | slot_in_epoch | Scheduled_time            | block_hash            |
|===|==========|==============|===========|===============|===========================|=======================|
| 1 | finality | 3238956      | 294633833 | 233           | 2026-01-07T20:23:18+04:00 | 0xec7a91ac...81f5d053 |
| 2 | finality | 3238966      | 294633843 | 243           | 2026-01-07T20:24:18+04:00 | 0x63ec2189...c0776574 |
|===|==========|==============|===========|===============|===========================|=======================|

What is stored in SQLite

The data stored in SQLite is continuously updated by running this application with mblog watch.

On the first run, an SQLite database is created at the --db path you specify, and data is accumulated in the following tables. Please note that if you change the path or omit it, a new database will be created.

Epoch info (epoch_info)

• epoch: Epoch number
• start_slot: Start slot
• end_slot: End slot
• authority_set_hash: Hash of the Authority set
• authority_set_len: Number of elements in the Authority set
• created_at_utc: Recorded time (UTC)

Block info (blocks)

• slot (primary key)
• epoch
• planned_time_utc: Planned block production time (UTC)
• block_number
• block_hash
• produced_time_utc
• status: schedule / mint / finality

Security

• This tool does not read or print secret keys (it detects the public key from keystore filenames).
• author_hasKey is an RPC that checks whether this node’s keystore contains the corresponding secret key.

Roadmap

• Indexer Integration
• UX improvements (please open an issue if you have a request)

License

Apache-2.0

Copyright (c) 2026 BTBF (X-StakePool)

Copyright (c) 2026 BTBF (X-StakePool)

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