The slinky repository is composed of the following core packages:

• abci - This package contains the vote extension, proposal, and preblock handlers that are used to broadcast oracle data to the network and to store it in the blockchain.
• oracle - This package contains the main oracle that aggregates external data sources before broadcasting it to the network. You can reference the provider documentation here to get a high level overview of how the oracle works.
• providers - This package contains a collection of websocket and API based data providers that are used by the oracle to collect external data.
• x/oracle - This package contains a Cosmos SDK module that allows you to store oracle data on a blockchain.
• x/marketmap - This package contains a Cosmos SDK module that allows for market configuration to be stored and updated on a blockchain.

git clone https://github.com/dydxprotocol/slinky.git
cd slinky/cmd/slinky
go install .

To read how to run the oracle as a validator based on the chain, please reference the validator documentation.

To run the oracle, run the following command.

$ make start-all-dev

This will:

1. Start a blockchain with a single validator node. It may take a few minutes to build and reach a point where vote extensions can be submitted.
2. Start the oracle side-car that will aggregate prices from external data providers and broadcast them to the network. To check the current aggregated prices on the side-car, you can run curl localhost:8080/slinky/oracle/v1/prices.
3. Host a prometheus instance that will scrape metrics from the oracle sidecar. Navigate to http://localhost:9091 to see all network traffic and metrics pertaining to the oracle sidecar. Navigate to http://localhost:8002 to see all application-side oracle metrics.
4. Host a profiler that will allow you to profile the oracle side-car. Navigate to http://localhost:6060 to see the profiler.
5. Host a grafana instance that will allow you to visualize the metrics scraped by prometheus. Navigate to http://localhost:3000 to see the grafana dashboard. The default username and password are admin and admin, respectively.

After a few minutes, run the following commands to see the prices written to the blockchain:

# access the blockchain container
$ docker exec -it compose-blockchain-1 bash

# query the price of bitcoin in USD on the node
$ (compose-blockchain-1) ./build/slinkyd q oracle price BTC USD

Result:

decimals: "8"
id: "0"
nonce: "44"
price:
  block_height: "46"
  block_timestamp: "2024-01-29T01:43:48.735542Z"
  price: "4221100000000"

To stop the oracle, run the following command:

$ make stop-all-dev

We have an extensive suite of metrics available to validators and chain operators. Please join our discord if you want help setting them up!

• metrics relevant to the oracle service's health + operation are here

• metrics relevant to the network's (that is running the instance of slinky) performance are here

• Skip renamed their repo (and code refs) from Slinky --> Connect for branding purposes.
• Unfortunately it is impossible to update V4 protocol to use the renamed version, as message names etc. were changed. This would cause downtime during the interval when validators have updated v4-chain to use the rename but have not yet updated sidecar (or vice-versa).
• As a result, the dYdX fork of skip-mev/connect has chosen to roll back to the pre-rename state, slinky, as the base for future development (along with backporting any essential post-rename changes to functionality).