fix: use maintained wallet-balance endpoint in star_checker

[zeroknowledge0x]

Fixes #6779

Summary

check_wallet_exists() in tools/bounty_verifier/star_checker.py was calling the stale /api/balance/<wallet> route, which can report a wallet as missing even when the node's public wallet-balance endpoint is healthy.

Changes

• Switched URL from /api/balance/<wallet> to /wallet/balance?miner_id=<wallet> (same maintained endpoint used by verifier.py)
• Added params= dict for proper query-string encoding
• Response validation now checks for a JSON dict containing amount_i64 rather than treating any HTTP 200 as success

Testing

• Verified that verifier.py already uses /wallet/balance?miner_id= successfully
• The new code mirrors the same endpoint + response-shape pattern
• check_wallet_exists() now returns True only when the node confirms the wallet has a balance record

[github-actions]

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[zqleslie]

Review — PR #6789 (fix: use maintained wallet-balance endpoint in star_checker)

Scope assessment

Single-file change in tools/bounty_verifier/star_checker.py — 20 lines (16 additions, 4 deletions). Clean BCOS-L1 fix targeting the stale /api/balance/ route used by check_wallet_exists().

What the fix does

• Switches from /api/balance/<wallet> → /wallet/balance?miner_id=<wallet>, matching the endpoint already used by verifier.py
• Uses params= dict for safe query-string encoding (prevents injection if wallet contains special chars)
• Replaces "any 200 = exists" heuristic with proper JSON shape validation (isinstance(body, dict) and "amount_i64" in body)

Technical review

Correctness ✅
The change aligns star_checker.py with verifier.py which already uses /wallet/balance?miner_id= successfully. The params= pattern is the correct requests idiom for query parameters.

Response validation ✅
Previous code treated any HTTP 200 as "wallet exists", which could false-positive on HTML error pages or maintenance responses. The new isinstance(body, dict) and "amount_i64" in body check ensures we only accept the expected JSON shape from the balance endpoint.

Edge cases considered:

• Wallet address with URL-special characters → handled by params= encoding
• Non-JSON 200 response → caught by resp.json() raising ValueError, falls to except Exception
• Empty dict response → "amount_i64" not in body → returns False (correct, wallet not confirmed)

Missing regression tests ⚠️

The PR body mentions verification against verifier.py but doesn't include test coverage. A simple regression test would be valuable:

def test_check_wallet_exists_uses_correct_endpoint():
    with patch("star_checker.requests.get") as mock_get:
        mock_get.return_value.status_code = 200
        mock_get.return_value.json.return_value = {"amount_i64": 1000}
        assert check_wallet_exists("RTC_test_wallet") is True
        mock_get.assert_called_once()
        call_kwargs = mock_get.call_args[1]
        assert "params" in call_kwargs
        assert call_kwargs["params"]["miner_id"] == "RTC_test_wallet"

Verdict

APPROVED — Clean, targeted fix. The endpoint change is well-justified and the response validation is strictly more robust than before. Would benefit from regression tests but doesn't block merge for this size of change.

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Bounty claim: Code review bounty under #73
Reviewer: zqleslie
Wallet: XKO212dF8324b9b61F294D26A6Dc68e3f81e4BE451D

[jaxint]

Great contribution! 🔍 Reviewed and looks solid.

[Scottcjn]

Closing as a duplicate of #6778 (FakerHideInBush), which fixed the same star_checker wallet-exists endpoint (/api/balance/<wallet> → maintained /wallet/balance?miner_id=, Issue #6779) and was the first substantive submission (00:00 UTC). Your fix was correct too — thanks for catching it; under one-bounty-per-issue the first reviewer/fixer is credited.