This is an accompanying document to [Altair -- The Beacon Chain](./beacon-chain.md), which describes the expected actions of a "validator" participating in the Ethereum proof-of-stake protocol.
This document represents the expected behavior of an "honest validator" with respect to the Altair upgrade of the Ethereum proof-of-stake protocol.
It builds on the [previous document for the behavior of an "honest validator" from Phase 0](../phase0/validator.md) of the Ethereum proof-of-stake protocol.
Altair introduces a new type of committee: the sync committee. Sync committees are responsible for signing each block of the canonical chain and there exists an efficient algorithm for light clients to sync the chain using the output of the sync committees.
All terminology, constants, functions, and protocol mechanics defined in the [Altair -- The Beacon Chain](./beacon-chain.md) doc are requisite for this document and used throughout.
Please see this document before continuing and use as a reference throughout.
## Warning
This document is currently illustrative for early Altair testnets and some parts are subject to change, especially pending implementation and profiling of Altair testnets.
A validator determines beacon committee assignments and beacon block proposal duties as defined in the Phase 0 document.
### Sync Committee
To determine sync committee assignments, a validator can run the following function: `is_assigned_to_sync_committee(state, epoch, validator_index)` where `epoch` is an epoch number within the current or next sync committee period.
This function is a predicate indicating the presence or absence of the validator in the corresponding sync committee for the queried sync committee period.
*Note*: Being assigned to a sync committee for a given `slot` means that the validator produces and broadcasts signatures for `slot - 1` for inclusion in `slot`.
This means that when assigned to an `epoch` sync committee signatures must be produced and broadcast for slots on range `[compute_start_slot_at_epoch(epoch) - 1, compute_start_slot_at_epoch(epoch) + SLOTS_PER_EPOCH - 1)`
rather than for the range `[compute_start_slot_at_epoch(epoch), compute_start_slot_at_epoch(epoch) + SLOTS_PER_EPOCH)`.
To reduce complexity during the Altair fork, sync committees are not expected to produce signatures for `compute_epoch_at_slot(ALTAIR_FORK_EPOCH) - 1`.
Once every `EPOCHS_PER_SYNC_COMMITTEE_PERIOD` epochs, the next `SyncCommittee` becomes the current `SyncCommittee` and the next committee is computed and stored.
For this reason, *always* get committee assignments via the fields of the `BeaconState` (`current_sync_committee` and `next_sync_committee`) or use the above reference code.
A validator should plan for future sync committee assignments by noting which sync committee periods they are selected for participation.
Specifically, a validator should:
* Upon (re)syncing the chain and upon sync committee period boundaries, check for assignments in the current and next sync committee periods.
* If the validator is in the next sync committee period, they should wait until the next `EPOCHS_PER_SYNC_COMMITTEE_PERIOD` boundary and then perform the responsibilities throughout that period.
## Beacon chain responsibilities
A validator maintains the responsibilities given in the Phase 0 document.
Block proposals are modified to incorporate the sync committee signatures as detailed below.
When assigned to a sync committee, validators have a new responsibility to sign and broadcast beacon block roots during each slot of the sync committee period.
Assignments to a particular sync committee are infrequent at normal validator counts; however, an action every slot is required when in the current active sync committee.
### Block proposal
Refer to the phase 0 document for the majority of the [block proposal responsibility](../phase0/validator.md#block-proposal).
The validator should follow those instructions to prepare a `SignedBeaconBlock` for inclusion into the chain. All changes are additive to phase 0 and noted below.
#### Preparing a `BeaconBlock`
No change to [Preparing for a `BeaconBlock`](../phase0/validator.md#preparing-for-a-beaconblock).
After constructing the `BeaconBlockBody` as per that section, the proposer has an additional task to include the sync committee signatures:
##### Sync committee
The proposer receives a number of `SyncCommitteeContribution`s (wrapped in `SignedContributionAndProof`s on the wire) from validators in the sync committee who are selected to partially aggregate signatures from independent subcommittees formed by breaking the full sync committee into `SYNC_COMMITTEE_SUBNET_COUNT` pieces (see below for details).
The proposer collects the contributions that match their local view of the chain (i.e. `contribution.beacon_block_root == block.parent_root`) for further aggregation when preparing a block.
Recall `block.body.sync_aggregate.sync_committee_bits` is a `Bitvector` where the `i`th bit is `True` if the corresponding validator in the sync committee has produced a valid signature,
*Note*: The resulting block must pass the validations for the `SyncAggregate` defined in `process_sync_aggregate` defined in the [state transition document](./beacon-chain.md#sync-aggregate-processing).
In particular, this means `SyncCommitteeContribution`s received from gossip must have a `beacon_block_root` that matches the proposer's local view of the chain.
#### Packaging into a `SignedBeaconBlock`
No change to [Packaging into a `SignedBeaconBlock`](../phase0/validator.md#packaging-into-a-signedbeaconblock).
Refer to the phase 0 document for the [attesting](../phase0/validator.md#attesting) and [attestation aggregation](../phase0/validator.md#attestation-aggregation) responsibilities.
Sync committee members employ an aggregation scheme to reduce load on the global proposer channel that is monitored by all potential proposers to be able to include the full output of the sync committee every slot.
Sync committee members produce individual signatures on subnets (similar to the attestation subnets) via `SyncCommitteeMessage`s which are then collected by aggregators sampled from the sync subcommittees to produce a `SyncCommitteeContribution` which is gossiped to proposers.
If a validator is in the current sync committee (i.e. `is_assigned_to_sync_committee()` above returns `True`), then for every `slot` in the current sync committee period, the validator should prepare a `SyncCommitteeMessage` for the previous slot (`slot - 1`) according to the logic in `get_sync_committee_message` as soon as they have determined the head block of `slot - 1`. This means that when assigned to `slot` a `SyncCommitteeMessage` is prepared and broadcast in `slot-1 ` instead of `slot`.
Meaning, a sync committee member should produce and broadcast a `SyncCommitteeMessage` either when (a) the validator has received a valid block from the expected block proposer for the current `slot` or (b) one-third of the slot has transpired (`SECONDS_PER_SLOT / INTERVALS_PER_SLOT` seconds after the start of the slot) -- whichever comes first.
`get_sync_committee_message(state, block_root, validator_index, privkey)` assumes the parameter `state` is the head state corresponding to processing the block up to the current slot as determined by the fork choice (including any empty slots up to the current slot processed with `process_slots` on top of the latest block), `block_root` is the root of the head block, `validator_index` is the index of the validator in the registry `state.validators` controlled by `privkey`, and `privkey` is the BLS private key for the validator.
`subnet_id` can be computed via `compute_subnets_for_sync_committee(state, validator_index)` where `state` is a `BeaconState` during the matching sync committee period.
*Note*: This function returns multiple deduplicated subnets if a given validator index is included multiple times in a given sync committee across multiple subcommittees.
*Note*: If a validator has multiple `subnet_id` results from `compute_subnets_for_sync_committee`, the validator should broadcast a copy of the `sync_committee_message` on each of the distinct subnets.
Each slot, some sync committee members in each subcommittee are selected to aggregate the `SyncCommitteeMessage`s into a `SyncCommitteeContribution` which is broadcast on a global channel for inclusion into the next block.
A validator is selected to aggregate based on the value returned by `is_sync_committee_aggregator()` where `signature` is the BLS signature returned by `get_sync_committee_selection_proof()`.
The signature function takes a `BeaconState` with the relevant sync committees for the queried `slot` (i.e. `state.slot` is within the span covered by the current or next sync committee period), the `subcommittee_index` equal to the `subnet_id`, and the `privkey` is the BLS private key associated with the validator.
If a validator is selected to aggregate the `SyncCommitteeMessage`s produced on a subnet during a given `slot`, they construct an aggregated `SyncCommitteeContribution`.
Collect all of the (valid) `sync_committee_messages: Set[SyncCommitteeMessage]` from the `sync_committee_{subnet_id}` gossip during the selected `slot` with an equivalent `beacon_block_root` to that of the aggregator. If `len(sync_committee_messages) > 0`, the aggregator creates a `contribution: SyncCommitteeContribution` with the following fields:
Set `contribution.subcommittee_index` to the index for the subcommittee index corresponding to the subcommittee assigned to this subnet. This index matches the `subnet_id` used to derive the topic name.
Let `contribution.aggregation_bits` be a `Bitvector[SYNC_COMMITTEE_SIZE // SYNC_COMMITTEE_SUBNET_COUNT]`, where the `index`th bit is set in the `Bitvector` for each corresponding validator included in this aggregate from the corresponding subcommittee.
An aggregator finds the index in the sync committee (as determined by a reverse pubkey lookup on `state.current_sync_committee.pubkeys`) for a given validator referenced by `sync_committee_message.validator_index` and maps the sync committee index to an index in the subcommittee (along with the prior `subcommittee_index`). This index within the subcommittee is set in `contribution.aggegration_bits`.
For example, if a validator with index `2044` is pseudo-randomly sampled to sync committee index `135`. This sync committee index maps to `subcommittee_index``1` with position `7` in the `Bitvector` for the contribution.
Set `contribution.signature = aggregate_signature` where `aggregate_signature` is obtained by assembling the appropriate collection of `BLSSignature`s from the set of `sync_committee_messages` and using the `bls.Aggregate()` function to produce an aggregate `BLSSignature`.
The collection of input signatures should include one signature per validator who had a bit set in the `aggregation_bits` bitfield, with repeated signatures if one validator maps to multiple indices within the subcommittee.
If the validator is selected to aggregate (`is_sync_committee_aggregator()`), then they broadcast their best aggregate as a `SignedContributionAndProof` to the global aggregate channel (`sync_committee_contribution_and_proof` topic) two-thirds of the way through the `slot`-that is, `SECONDS_PER_SLOT * 2 / INTERVALS_PER_SLOT` seconds after the start of `slot`.
Selection proofs are provided in `ContributionAndProof` to prove to the gossip channel that the validator has been selected as an aggregator.
`ContributionAndProof` messages are signed by the aggregator and broadcast inside of `SignedContributionAndProof` objects to prevent a class of DoS attacks and message forgeries.
First, `contribution_and_proof = get_contribution_and_proof(state, validator_index, contribution, privkey)` is constructed.
Then `signed_contribution_and_proof = SignedContributionAndProof(message=contribution_and_proof, signature=signature)` is constructed and broadcast. Where `signature` is obtained from:
The sync committee subnets need special care to ensure stability given the relatively low number of validators involved in the sync committee at any particular time.
* Maintain advertisement of the subnet the validator in the sync committee is assigned to in their node's ENR as soon as they have joined the subnet.
Subnet assignments are known `EPOCHS_PER_SYNC_COMMITTEE_PERIOD` epochs in advance and can be computed with `compute_subnets_for_sync_committee` defined above.
ENR advertisement is indicated by setting the appropriate bit(s) of the bitfield found under the `syncnets` key in the ENR corresponding to the derived `subnet_id`(s).
Any bits modified for the sync committee responsibilities are unset in the ENR once the node no longer has any validators in the subcommittee.
*Note*: The first sync committee from phase 0 to the Altair fork will not be known until the fork happens, which implies subnet assignments are not known until then.
Early sync committee members should listen for topic subscriptions from peers and employ discovery via the ENR advertisements near the fork boundary to form initial subnets.
* To join a sync committee subnet, select a random number of epochs before the end of the current sync committee period between 1 and `SYNC_COMMITTEE_SUBNET_COUNT`, inclusive.
Validators should join their member subnet at the beginning of the epoch they have randomly selected.
For example, if the next sync committee period starts at epoch `853,248` and the validator randomly selects an offset of `3`, they should join the subnet at the beginning of epoch `853,245`.
Validators should leverage the lookahead period on sync committee assignments so that they can join the appropriate subnets ahead of their assigned sync committee period.
