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Observability & Metrics

satd is built to make running a full node transparent. Rather than running blind or parsing a chatty log file, operators get a native terminal dashboard, a Prometheus endpoint, and structured logs out of the box.

Native TUI (sat-tui)

satd ships with a native Ratatui-based terminal interface. Rather than running blind or relying on chatty log files, operators can visualize node progress in real-time.

  • IBD Bitmap: Visualizes block download and verification progress.
  • Peer Stats: Shows connected peers, their latency, and block delivery rates.
  • Mempool Status: Live view of mempool depth and fee percentiles.

The full sat-tui reference — every view, panel, field, and keybinding — is in the Terminal UI chapter.

Prometheus Metrics Endpoint

  • Enable flag: --metricsport=<port> — the metrics/health server starts only when a port is set. --metricsbind=<addr> sets the bind address alone (default 127.0.0.1); it does not enable the server on its own. The listener binds <metricsbind>:<metricsport>.
  • Exposes a native Prometheus HTTP server at GET /metrics providing deep insights into P2P traffic, block validation times, mempool depth, and RocksDB performance. P2P wire volume is exported as the satd_net_bytes_sent_total / satd_net_bytes_recv_total counters (peer count via satd_peer_connections).
  • Includes GET /healthz and GET /readyz endpoints for load balancer and orchestrator integration.

See the Packaging chapter for how to wire /healthz and /readyz to Docker HEALTHCHECK, Kubernetes probes, or a systemd ExecStartPost= poll.

Prefer /metrics over RPC polling for monitoring. The Bitcoin Core RPCs getnettotals (byte totals) and getpeerinfo (bytessent/bytesrecv/lastsend/lastrecv) are populated and accurate for steady-state traffic, but they exist for Core compatibility. For dashboards and alerting, scrape the native Prometheus endpoint instead: it is a counter model purpose-built for time-series tooling (rates, retention, labels) and does not consume an RPC worker on every scrape. The RPC byte counters cover post-handshake traffic only (the one-time handshake bytes are not included), so absolute socket totals will read marginally lower than the kernel's.

Structured JSON Logging

  • Flag: --log-format=json|text
  • Replaces the traditional debug.log text firehose with structured, machine-parseable JSON logs. Perfect for Datadog, ELK, or custom log-alerting pipelines. Trace IDs allow operators to follow a single block through prefetch, connect, and flush.