Integrity & Empty Data

Block tracking directives (directiveDefaults)

Transaction and header validation directives

All disabled by default. Enable for high-integrity use-cases where the overhead of JSON parsing is acceptable.

Log and receipt validation directives

Receipt cross-check directives

Empty/missing data handling — failsafe[].retry fields

Choosing emptyResultDelay by chain:

directiveDefaults.retryEmpty

evm.markEmptyAsErrorMethods (per-network)

Promote empty responses to hard errors (not just retryable empties) for specific methods. Retried AND counted as upstream errors (affects scoring and circuit breaker):

networks:
  - architecture: evm
    evm:
      chainId: 1
      markEmptyAsErrorMethods:
        - eth_getTransactionReceipt   # empty means tx missing, not pending on this chain

eRPC ships with sensible defaults that cover common point-lookup methods (eth_getBlockByNumber, eth_getBlockReceipts, eth_getTransactionByHash, traces, etc.). Only add entries when an empty response on that method specifically means the upstream lacks the data rather than "not found."

eth_getBlockByHash and eth_getTransactionReceipt are intentionally excluded from defaults: subgraph upstreams commonly return null for eth_getBlockByHash, and eth_getTransactionReceipt returns null for pending transactions.

Per-upstream integrity — eth_getBlockReceipts checks

Two per-upstream flags gate which checks run locally on that upstream's responses (in addition to whatever directiveDefaults enable network-wide):

checkLogsBloom vs validateLogsBloomMatch — two different checks at two different layers:

• evm.integrity.eth_getBlockReceipts.checkLogsBloom (upstream level) — checks that the bloom union computed from the receipts' logs equals the block header's logsBloom. Fires on eth_getBlockReceipts responses only. Catches upstreams that return receipts with missing or truncated log entries.
• directiveDefaults.validateLogsBloomMatch (network level) — checks that the addresses and topics in eth_getLogs results are consistent with the block headers' bloom filters. Fires on eth_getLogs responses. Catches upstreams that drop log entries from a getLogs response without reflecting that in the bloom.

Deprecated: evm.integrity block

The old network.evm.integrity block is deprecated. It is still accepted but emits a deprecation warning. Migrate to directiveDefaults:

# Old (deprecated — still works):
networks:
  - architecture: evm
    evm:
      chainId: 1
      integrity:
        enforceHighestBlock: true
        enforceGetLogsBlockRange: true
        enforceNonNullTaggedBlocks: true
 
# New (use this):
networks:
  - architecture: evm
    evm: { chainId: 1 }
    directiveDefaults:
      enforceHighestBlock: true
      enforceGetLogsBlockRange: true
      enforceNonNullTaggedBlocks: true

The directiveDefaults form is a superset — it exposes all transaction, log, and receipt validation fields that the old integrity block never covered. See Networks for the full directiveDefaults reference.

Common pitfalls

• Validation directives are off by default — they add JSON-parsing overhead on every response. Enable only what you actually need. For most non-indexer use-cases, the block-tracking directives (enforceHighestBlock, enforceGetLogsBlockRange) are sufficient.
• validateLogsBloomMatch is the most expensive — it recomputes the bloom filter from every log in the response. Enable only on eth_getBlockReceipts or similar receipt-heavy methods, not network-wide.
• emptyResultAccept vs markEmptyAsErrorMethods — emptyResultAccept says "empty is valid, don't retry." markEmptyAsErrorMethods says "empty is an error, retry AND penalize the upstream." They are opposites. Adding a method to both has undefined behavior; pick one.
• emptyResultConfidence: finalizedBlock is more conservative — empties on unfinalized blocks are still retried even for methods in emptyResultAccept. Use blockHead (default) unless you specifically need finalized-only trust.
• blockUnavailableDelay static value is rarely needed — the dynamic block-time estimate takes over within the first few seconds. Only set it if your use-case requires a specific floor during the warmup window.
• enforceNonNullTaggedBlocks: false for zkSync-style chains — some L2s legitimately return null for certain block tags (e.g. "pending" on chains without a mempool). Disable only for those specific networks.
• Using deprecated evm.integrity with new directiveDefaults — if both are present, directiveDefaults takes precedence and the integrity block is ignored. Migrate fully.