#steemit

Upcoming Changes to api.steemit.com

API changes.jpg

In as soon as 7 days (2018-12-07 23:00:00 UTC), the api.steemit.com endpoint will begin to route select steemd methods directly to hivemind. If you rely on this endpoint for any of the methods below, you should begin testing your applications against api.steemitdev.com as soon as possible.

This is in preparation for the removal of tags and follows plugins from our full nodes, the functionality of which has been ported to the hivemind service. While hivemind attempts to mimic the existing request/response format as well as all of the underlying logic, there are notable exceptions which will be outlined in this post.

As we disclosed in our last post, Steemit Inc.’s top priority is dramatically lowering the cost of running a Steem node. By routing these API calls to Hivemind, we greatly decrease the amount of resources our full nodes use.

Background

Hive's condenser_api implementation goal is to port a relevant subset of steemd's tags and follows functionalities to support instances of condenser with minimal changes required. This allows node operators to lower steemd resource requirements while laying the infrastructure for next-generation social APIs.

While we have attempted to ensure relevant data is still available, in some cases this is simply impossible. A prime example of this is the get_state call, whose response is a monolith which attempts to account for an extremely wide variety of data. Portions of the returned data is irrelevant to most apps, and some of it is entirely out of hive's scope (example: witness schedule). As another example, when loading a discussion thread, all involved accounts objects are returned in full (including balances, authorities, statistics). This results in a lot of extra bandwidth used when only a small fraction of the information is relevant.

In some cases, portions of API responses unused by condenser have simply not been implemented in hive -- either to save time or complexity. In other cases, expected values may be slightly different but of a compatible format. Hive cannot guarantee data is accurate as of the latest block. Because interfaces often rely on supporting information such as steem_per_vests or feed_price, hive does store and return some marginally-out-of-scope-yet-accessible data, but it will be cached with a TTL of up to several minutes. Those values can still be obtained through other API calls to steemd.

API Changes - Overview

We will migrate the API by overriding specific steemd methods passed to api.steemit.com.

These methods will now be served by hivemind:

Follows Queries

    get_followers                 [following, start_follower, follow_type, limit]
    get_following                 [follower, start_following, follow_type, limit]
    get_follow_count              [account]

Content Monolith

    get_state                     [path]

Trending Tags

    get_trending_tags             [start_tag, limit]         (!) only supports ('', 250)

Discussion Queries

    get_discussions_by_trending   {tag, limit, start_author, start_permlink}    trending
    get_discussions_by_hot        {tag, limit, start_author, start_permlink}    hot
    get_discussions_by_promoted   {tag, limit, start_author, start_permlink}    promoted
    get_discussions_by_created    {tag, limit, start_author, start_permlink}    created

    get_discussions_by_blog       {tag, limit, start_author, start_permlink}    account-blog
    get_discussions_by_feed       {tag, limit, start_author, start_permlink}    account-feed
    get_discussions_by_comments        {limit, start_author, start_permlink}    account-comments
    get_replies_by_last_update    [author, permlink, limit];                    account-replies

Exceptions

These calls will NOT be forwarded to hivemind, and will be forwarded to a light steemd node:

get_state.params=['@<user>/transfers']
get_state.params=['~witnesses']

Not ported

Deprecated/Unused Discussion Queries - NOT ported!

    get_post_discussions_by_payout        {tag, limit, start_author, start_permlink}    payout
    get_comment_discussions_by_payout     {tag, limit, start_author, start_permlink}    payout_comments
    get_discussions_by_cashout            {tag, limit, start_author, start_permlink}    UNUSED/cashout
    get_discussions_by_children           {tag, limit, start_author, start_permlink}    UNUSED/responses
    get_discussions_by_votes              {tag, limit, start_author, start_permlink}    UNUSED/votes
    get_discussions_by_active             {tag, limit, start_author, start_permlink}    DEPRECATED
    get_discussions_by_trending30         {tag, limit, start_author, start_permlink}    DEPRECATED (DNE)
    get_discussions_by_payout             {tag, limit, start_author, start_permlink}    UNUSED (DNE)
    get_discussions_by_author_before_date [author, start_permlink, before_date, limit]  UNUSED

Additionally, the following have not been ported, which means they may become unavailable.

    get_feed_entries()
    get_feed()
    get_blog_entries()
    get_blog()

    get_account_reputations()
    get_reblogged_by()
    get_blog_authors()
    get_tags_used_by_author()

These *may* be available for some time, but will be served by a light node. We cannot guarantee their availability.

Many of these calls are very similar (or identical) to one of the supported methods. If this is not the case, please leave a comment and we'll evaluate the options.

Not ported, still available through steemd's condenser_api

As these are still part of consensus and consumers often expect them to be 100% accurate and up-to-date, they are not currently served by hivemind and will continue to be available through steemd.

Content Primitives

    get_content                   [author, permlink]
    get_content_replies           [parent_author, parent_permlink]

    get_active_votes              [author, permlink]
    get_account_votes             [account]

Steemd configuration changes

After a period of testing, the follow and tags plugins will be removed from our API nodes. We will however add the reputation plugin, which allows us to continue using the existing reputation metrict. It used to be a subset of follow plugin functionality, and it's the only piece logic which is not easily reproducible outside of steemd. If you were relying on reputation methods provided by follow_api, you will need to update your code to use reputation_api.

API Changes - Detail

Legacy `call` method

call         ['condenser_api', method, params]

The legacy-style call method takes [api, method, [params]] as parameters. Hive routes these calls to the appropriate internal method.

Concerns

api must be set to condenser_api
It is not recommended to use this method

Follows Queries

condenser_api.get_followers
condenser_api.get_following
condenser_api.get_follow_count

These are straightforward, simple replacements.

Concerns

steemd follows plugin can hold multiple follow 'states'; hive enforces one
- the feature is undocumented but small chance of edge cases
- internally, hive follow state must be blank, followed or muted

Content Primitives

condenser_api.get_content
condenser_api.get_content_replies

Important: while hive offers these methods as part of its condenser_api, api.steemit.com will continue to serve these directly from steemd. However, hive does leverage it internally to build responses for get_state as well as the various get_discussions_* methods.

Concerns

hive's comment response format is a subset of steemd's.
deprecated/useless fields have been removed or normalized
some fields of questionable utility are not unimplemented

Content Monolith

condenser_api.get_state

Notice! Hive will refuse to serve these routes:

/@account/transfers
/witnesses and /~witnesses

Hive does serve these routes, requested by condenser, which are not mapped to anything, but steemd handles them anyway:

/@account/followed - dummy
/@account/followers - dummy
/@account/permissions - dummy
/@account/password - dummy
/@account/settings - dummy

Concerns

embedded get_dynamic_global_properties data is truncated
hive does not keep up-to-date keys for accounts.. but on /@account/xxx pages, it still serves minimal account data.

Trending Tags

condenser_api.get_trending_tags

Concerns

the parameters [start_tag, limit] must be left blank or passed as ['', 250]
only primary tags ("category") counted in these stats (not all tags, as per current implementation)

Discussion Queries

Global

condenser_api.get_discussions_by_trending
condenser_api.get_discussions_by_hot
condenser_api.get_discussions_by_promoted
condenser_api.get_discussions_by_created

Account/blog-specific

condenser_api.get_discussions_by_blog
condenser_api.get_discussions_by_feed
condenser_api.get_discussions_by_comments
condenser_api.get_replies_by_last_update

Concerns

all get_content concerns apply here; otherwise identical

Testing & Feedback

If your app or service relies on any of the above calls and uses api.steemit.com, please begin testing against api.steemitdev.com as soon as possible. If there is an unsupported API call on which you are critically relying on, let us know in the comments and we'll find a solution.

Note that at this time, no steemd APIs are changing -- only the API as provided by api.steemit.com.

If any apps are still relying on get_state, we highly recommend ceasing use as soon as possible.

The Steemit Team

Comments · 20

@igster(63)· 2631d
Hello, I'm using Steem.js personally and I'm trying to to filter trending query with multiple tags but can't find a way to do this from official docs. Is this still possible?

Select_tags : [tag1, tag2] doesn't work anymore with hivemind it seems.
@navidgoalpure(39)· 2669d
hello when i using "get_discussions_by_blog" with "filter_tags" or "select_tags ", i come across with this error "filter_tags not supported (hivemind-alpha)" Can I not use this combination? this is my code: http://dpaste.com/13ZHMKC thank you
@ennosan(59)· 2782d
get_reblogged_by is no longer supported? Is there a replacement or should I read 30,000,000 blocks to find out who is resteeming my articles?

I also use get_discussions_by_author_before_date get_feed get_content get_active_votes get_account_votes
@thevillan(68)· 2802d
Hi, I use steem.api.getRebloggedBy in my bot, whats an alternative to this as it no longer works. Thanks :)
@richatvns(73)· 2822d
Wow finally deciding to Optimize, that means you guys weren't doing it along the way...

That's why Agile programming practices suck!

You did not have a Chief Architect and Lead Designers and the classic top down hierarchy. These issues would have been caught early QA and you wouldn't be in the desperate situation your in now @ned.

Hopefully you've learned your lesson and get someone in there who has built a firm from the 15 to 200 employee stage and then bring in someone else to move the firm to the next level.

A Leader who sees the both the good and more importantly the pitfalls from experience and inspires people to come up with solutions and think when it is right to go tried and true and when outside the box is needed.

Not a Boss who just tells people what has to go on.

You need to learn something from the AMC show run of "Halt or Catch Fire.".
@steemchiller(73)· 2823d
I'm using 'get_discussions_by_author_before_date' in my tools because it returns the account's posts without the resteems and I can load up to 100 posts with only one call. Is there any way to achieve this with 'get_discussions_by_blog'?

I've seen that there was a resteems-filter in earlier versions (params.hide == "resteemed", later by setting a discussion_query_filter with params.filter_by), but it seems not to be possible anymore in newer versions.

I think that's an important thing to think about because it will otherwise create much overhead for loading 100 posts and I guess many apps would use that instead of filtering the received posts on the client-side.
@penguinpablo(78)· 2823d
How can I keep using the discussion queries in Steem.JS like steem.api.getDiscussionsByBlog() or steem.api.getDiscussionsByTrending()?

When I try these functions on api.steemitdev.com I get this error: RPCError: Server error.
@theguruasia(69)· 2826d
@steemitdev, Sounds good and wanna see how it works soon! One more thing, cost deduction is a good idea, but try to manage it while keeping Steem future at the bright side!

Cheers~
@cardboard(65)· 2826d
Hi guys. If I want to get the list of @user's posts, how can I do it instead of get_blog?

_{Posted using Steeve, an AI-powered Steem interface}
@masterthematrix(61)· 2826d
Good to see that the first steps are already being made to cut costs.

Posted using Partiko Android
@thevillan(68)· 2826d
So if I use steemit.js with a call like steem.api.getState how do I go about converting/updating. This couldn't have come at a worse time for me as I'm moving house. Will probably have to put @steeming-hot out of action for a while
@clumsysilverdad(65)· 2826d
what will be the percent increase in odds of hacking?
@jarvie(75)· 2826d
Ok we shall have @asgarth take a look for @steempeak functionality. Didn't realize it would be 2 days after the announcements and 7 days notice. But it is what it is we will make it
@cryptofunk(64)· 2826d
Are there any public nodes available anymore, there used to be all these but they are all offline to me? http://steemistry.com/nodes/
@crimsonclad(74)· 2826d
Hive has been one of the things I've been most ready to see get up and really rolling. I'm going to be very interested in seeing the spread of findings and needs of the dApps out there as they start testing.
@therealwolf(77)· 2826d
Exactly what I want to see. Great progress! Testing asap.
@steemvoter(73)· 2826d
This post has been selected by the Steemvoter (SV) Guild, standby for incoming vote support courtesy of @buildteam and @steemvoter.
@thecryptodrive(70)· 2826d
Reducing the resource cost of full nodes is great news, thanks for this. standby for some additional votes incoming for further visibility.
@igormuba(72)· 2826d
please, the only thing I request is to take a break from adding and changing functionalities and spend some weeks on building easier and better documentation and tutorials! Really the API is amazing, but the documentation is not beginner friendly at all! I am working on a tutorial series trying to make things simple for non programmers to understand because I want people to be bottlenecked by their creativity only, not their technical knowledge, but I alone can't do it, please, take your time to make a tutorial series, does not matter if you "steal" my students and my earnings from the tutorials but put more effort on making tutorials and noob friendly documentation, this is a must for scalability! people just can't understand easily how to use your API to the fullest, you can add and modify as many functionalities as you want, but if steem dapps development stays intellectually elitist we won't have mass adoption because some people might have great ideas for simple apps but they can't execute it without breaking their backs trying to understand how does it work!

Posted using Partiko Android
@oyvindsabo(53)· 2826d
As long as everything is well documented, I'm sure there won't be any significant issues.

Background

API Changes - Overview

Exceptions

Not ported

Not ported, still available through steemd's condenser_api

Steemd configuration changes

API Changes - Detail

Legacy call method

Concerns

Follows Queries

Concerns

Content Primitives

Concerns

Content Monolith

Concerns

Trending Tags

Concerns

Discussion Queries

Concerns

Testing & Feedback

Comments · 20

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