The Signet Block Builder

The Builder simulates bundles and transactions against the latest chain state to create valid Signet rollup blocks and submits them to the configured host chain as an EIP-4844 transaction.

Bundles are treated as Flashbots-style bundles, meaning that the Builder should respect transaction ordering, bundle atomicity, and the specified revertability.

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🚀 System Design

The Builder orchestrates a series of asynchronous actors that work together to build blocks for every assigned slot.

1. Env - watches the latest host and rollup blocks to monitor gas rates and block updates.
2. Cache - polls bundle and transaction caches and adds them to the cache.
3. Simulator - simulates transactions and bundles against rollup state and block environment to build them into a cohesive block.
4. FlashbotsSubmit - handles preparing and submitting the simulated block to a private Flashbots relay.
5. Metrics - records block and tx data over time.

%%{ init : { "theme" : "dark" } }%%
flowchart TD
   %% Initialization
   Start(["Start"]) --> Init["Init tracing & logging"]
   Init --> Config["Load BuilderConfig from env"]

   Inbound["📥 Transactions &
   📦 Bundles"] --> Cache["🪏 Cache Task"]
   Quincey["🖊️ Quincey (Signer)"]

   %% Block building loop
   subgraph BuilderLoop["Block Building Loop"]
      Env["🔢 Env Task"]
      Cache["🪏 Cache Task"]
      Simulator["💾 Simulator Task"]
      Metrics["📏 Metrics Task"]
      FlashbotsSubmit["📥 Flashbots Submit Task"]
   end

   %% Signing
   FlashbotsSubmit --hash--> Quincey
   Quincey -- signature --> FlashbotsSubmit

   %% Config wiring
   Config -.rollup rpc.-> Env
   Config -.host rpc.-> Env
   Config -.host rpc.-> Simulator
   Config -.rollup rpc.-> Simulator
   Config -.host rpc.-> Metrics
   Config -.host rpc.-> FlashbotsSubmit

   %% Core flow
   Env ==block env==> Simulator
   Cache ==sim cache==> Simulator
   Simulator ==built block==> FlashbotsSubmit

   %% Network submission
   FlashbotsSubmit ==>|"tx bundle"| FlashbotsRelay["🛡️ Flashbots Relay"]
   FlashbotsRelay ==> Ethereum

   %% Metrics
   FlashbotsSubmit ==rollup block tx hash==> Metrics

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💾 Simulation Task

The block building loop waits until a new block environment has been received, and then kicks off the next attempt.

When the Builder receives a new block, it takes a reference to the transaction cache, calculates a simulation deadline for the current slot with a buffer of 1.5 seconds, and begins constructing a block for the current slot.

Transactions enter through the cache, and then they're sent to the simulator, where they're run against the latest chain state and block environment. If they're successfully applied, they're added to the block. If a transaction fails to be applied, it is simply ignored.

When the deadline is reached, the simulator is stopped, and all open simulation threads are cancelled. The built block is then bundled with the block environment and the previous host header that it was simulated against, and all three are passed along to the submit task.

✨ Submit Task

The Flashbots submit task prepares a Flashbots bundle out of the Signet block and its host transactions and then submits that bundle to the Flashbots endpoint. It sends the hash of the rollup block transaction for to the Metrics task for further tracking.

If the block received from simulation is empty, the submit task will ignore it.

Finally, if it's non-empty, the submit task attempts to get a signature for the block, and if it fails due to a 403 error, it will skip the current slot and begin waiting for the next block.

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⚙️ Configuration

The Builder is configured via environment variables. The following values are supported for configuration.

Key	Required	Description
RUST_LOG	No	The log level of the builder
CHAIN_NAME	No	The chain name ("pecorino", or the corresponding name)
HOST_RPC_URL	Yes	RPC endpoint for the host chain
ROLLUP_RPC_URL	Yes	RPC endpoint for the rollup chain
QUINCEY_URL	Yes	Remote sequencer signing endpoint
SEQUENCER_KEY	No	AWS Key ID OR local private key for the Sequencer; set IFF using local Sequencer signing instead of remote (via QUINCEY_URL) Quincey signing
TX_POOL_URL	Yes	Transaction pool URL (must end with /)
FLASHBOTS_ENDPOINT	No	Flashbots API to submit blocks to
ROLLUP_BLOCK_GAS_LIMIT	No	Override for rollup block gas limit
MAX_HOST_GAS_COEFFICIENT	No	Optional maximum host gas coefficient, as a percentage, to use when building blocks
BUILDER_KEY	Yes	AWS KMS key ID or local private key for builder signing
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID	No	AWS secret access key ID (required if not using BUILDER_KEY)
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY	No	AWS secret access key (required if not using BUILDER_KEY)
AWS_DEFAULT_REGION	No	AWS region for the KMS key in question (required if not using BUILDER_KEY)
BUILDER_PORT	Yes	HTTP port for the Builder (default: 8080)
BUILDER_REWARDS_ADDRESS	Yes	Address receiving builder rewards
CONCURRENCY_LIMIT	No	Optional max number of concurrent tasks the simulator uses. Defaults to a system call to determine optimal parallelism
OAUTH_CLIENT_ID	Yes	Oauth client ID for the builder
OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET	Yes	Oauth client secret for the builder
OAUTH_AUTHENTICATE_URL	Yes	Oauth authenticate URL for the builder for performing OAuth logins
OAUTH_TOKEN_URL	Yes	Oauth token URL for the builder to get an Oauth2 access token
AUTH_TOKEN_REFRESH_INTERVAL	Yes	The OAuth token refresh interval in seconds.

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💻 Recommended Specs

Key	Minimum	Recommended
CPU	0.1 vCPU	0.5 vCPU
Memory	256MB	512MB

Note: Builder prefers clock speed over core count, recommended 2.8Ghz+

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💾 EVM Behavior

🗿 Inherited Header Values

PREVRANDAO is set to a random byte string for each block.

// `src/tasks/env.rs`
prevrandao: Some(B256::random()),

TIMESTAMP - Block timestamps are set to the same value as the current Ethereum block.

Blob gas values excess_blob_gas and blob_gasprice are also set to 0 for all Signet blocks.

🔢 Disabled Opcodes

BLOBHASH - EIP-4844 is not supported on Signet. BLOBBASEFEE - EIP4844 is not supported.

⛽ Transaction Submission

When a completed, non-empty Signet block is received by the Submit task, it prepares the block data into a blob transaction and submits it to the network.

If it fails, it will retry up to 3 times with a 12.5% bump on each retry.

The previous header's basefee is tracked through the build loop and used for gas estimation purposes in the Submit Task.

🛠️ Development

Requirements

• Rust ≥ 1.85
• AWS CLI
• A private key or AWS KMS key for signing transactions

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✅ Testing

1. Build the Docker image:

docker build -t builder:latest .

2. Push to your container registry:

docker push <registry>/builder:latest

3. Update your deployment manifests with the new image.

4. Verify expected behavior in your target network.

• This should typically include sending a test transaction and verifying it is simulated and built into a block.

🪪 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.