API

This module provides REST API for client applications to query the Aptos blockchain.

For an Aptos node, you can view the documentation at /spec.html.

Overview

API routes and handlers are managed by warp framework; endpoints/handlers are grouped into files named by resource names (e.g. accounts, transactions).

Each handler defines: 1. Routes: all routes of the handlers supported in the file. 2. warp handler: an async function returns Result<impl Reply, Rejection>. 3. Endpoint handler: this may not be required if the endpoint logic is super simple.

index.rs is the root of all routes, it handles GET /API and connects all resources' routes with error handling.

The service is launched with a Context instance, which holds all external components (e.g. AptosDB, mempool sender). The Context object also serves as a facade of external components, and sharing some general functionalities across all handlers.

Parameter Handling

There are four types HTTP input:

  1. Path parameter.
  2. Query parameter.
  3. Request body.
  4. Request header.

We process parameters in three stages:

  1. Capture HTTP parameter values; this is done by warp routes definition.
  2. Parse/deserialize HTTP parameter values into API internal data types; this should be done in the warp handler (the async function passed into warp::Filter#and_then function) or endpoint handler's constructor (new function).
  3. Process internal data types; this is done by the endpoint handler functions.

For path parameter:

  1. Create a Param<TargetType> type alias TargetTypeParam in the param.rs, and use it in the warp route definition for capturing the HTTP path parameter. We don't parse the parameter at this stage, because warp will drop error and return not_found error without a meaningful message.
  2. The TargetType is required to implement FromStr trait, and Param#parse uses it for parsing the HTTP path parameter string and returning 400 error code with a meaningful invalid parameter error message.

Query parameters should not be required, always provide default values for the case they are not provided.

Principles

To create easy to use API, the following principles are valued

  1. Robustness: be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others. Specifically, the API should accept variant formats of valid input data, but be restricted to the output it produces. For example, an account address may have three valid hex-encoded formats: 0x1, 0x00000000000000000000000000000001 and 00000000000000000000000000000001; API accepts all of them as input, but all API should output consistent same format (0x1). The API should also only expose must-have and the most stable concepts as data structure.
  2. Layered Architecture: the API is a layer on top of Aptos core/blockchain. JSON is the primary content type we used, a client application should be able to do all aspects of interaction with Aptos blockchain using JSON.
  3. Compatible with JSON standard and most of the tools, e.g. output string type for u64 instead of integer.

Models

Models or types are defined in the aptos-api-types package (in the directory /api/types).

These types handle the JSON serialization and deserialization between internal data types and API response JSON types.

From / TryFrom traits are implemented for converting between API data type and Aptos core data types instead of special constructors.

Move data are converted by procedures defined in the convert.rs, because Move data type definitions are defined by the Move module stored in the Aptos DB. We first retrieve Move data types from the database, then convert them into API data types.

When we convert internal Move struct values into JSON, the data type information will be lost, thus we can't direct convert move struct value JSON data back to any internal data structure while deserializing HTTP request data. For this reason: 1. aptos_api_types::MoveValue is only used internally for converting move values into JSON before we create external facing API types (e.g. TransactionPayload). 2. When deserializing API request JSON data, we first convert them into external facing API types with Move values as JSON value, then convert Move JSON values into internal move value type move_core_types::value::MoveValue when we need.

Error Handling

Errors are handled by the warp.Rejection handler defined in the index.rs for all routes. An anyhow::Error is considered as server internal error (500) by default. All internal errors should be converted into anyhow::Error first. An aptos_api_types.Error is defined for converting anyhow::Error to warp.Rejection with HTTP error code.

Testing

Unit Test

Handler tests should cover all aspects of features and functions.

A TestContext is implemented to create components' stubs that API handlers are connected to. These stubs are more close to real production components, instead of mocks, so that tests can ensure the API handlers are working well with other components in the systems. For example, we use real AptosDB implementation in tests for API layers to interact with the database.

Most of the utility functions are provided by the TestContext.

Integration/Smoke Test

Run integration/smoke tests in testsuite/smoke-test

cargo test --test "forge" "api::"

API Specification Test

Failpoint setup

Failpoint configuration example:

failpoints api::endpoint_index: 1%return api::endpoint_get_account: 1%return api::endpoint_get_account_resources: 1%return api::endpoint_get_account_modules: 1%return api::endpoint_get_transaction: 1%return api::endpoint_get_transactions: 1%return api::endpoint_get_account_transactions: 1%return api::endpoint_submit_json_transactions: 1%return api::endpoint_submit_bcs_transactions: 1%return api::endpoint_create_signing_message: 1%return api::endpoint_get_events_by_event_key: 1%return api::endpoint_get_events_by_event_handle: 1%return

Aptos Node Operation

Please refer to Operation document for details, including configuration, logging, metrics etc.