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x/circuit

Concepts

Circuit Breaker is a module that is meant to avoid a chain needing to halt/shut down in the presence of a vulnerability, instead the module will allow specific messages or all messages to be disabled. When operating a chain, if it is app specific then a halt of the chain is less detrimental, but if there are applications built on top of the chain then halting is expensive due to the disturbance to applications. Circuit Breaker works with the idea that an address or set of addresses have the right to block messages from being executed and/or included in the mempool. Any address with a permission is able to reset the circuit breaker for the message. The transactions are checked and can be rejected at two points:
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:::note The CircuitBreakerDecorator works for most use cases, but does not check the inner messages of a transaction. This some transactions (such as x/authz transactions or some x/gov transactions) may pass the ante handler. This does not affect the circuit breaker as the message router check will still fail the transaction. This tradeoff is to avoid introducing more dependencies in the x/circuit module. Chains can re-define the CircuitBreakerDecorator to check for inner messages if they wish to do so. :::

State

Accounts

  • AccountPermissions 0x1 | account_address -> ProtocolBuffer(CircuitBreakerPermissions)

Disable List

List of type urls that are disabled.
  • DisableList 0x2 | msg_type_url -> []byte{}

State Transitions

Authorize

Authorize, is called by the module authority (default governance module account) or any account with LEVEL_SUPER_ADMIN to give permission to disable/enable messages to another account. There are three levels of permissions that can be granted. LEVEL_SOME_MSGS limits the number of messages that can be disabled. LEVEL_ALL_MSGS permits all messages to be disabled. LEVEL_SUPER_ADMIN allows an account to take all circuit breaker actions including authorizing and deauthorizing other accounts.

Trip

Trip, is called by an authorized account to disable message execution for a specific msgURL. If empty, all the msgs will be disabled.

Reset

Reset is called by an authorized account to enable execution for a specific msgURL of previously disabled message. If empty, all the disabled messages will be enabled.

Messages

MsgAuthorizeCircuitBreaker

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This message is expected to fail if:
  • the granter is not an account with permission level LEVEL_SUPER_ADMIN or the module authority

MsgTripCircuitBreaker

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This message is expected to fail if:
  • if the signer does not have a permission level with the ability to disable the specified type url message

MsgResetCircuitBreaker

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This message is expected to fail if:
  • if the type url is not disabled

Events - list and describe event tags

The circuit module emits the following events:

Message Events

MsgAuthorizeCircuitBreaker

MsgTripCircuitBreaker

ResetCircuitBreaker

Keys - list of key prefixes used by the circuit module

  • AccountPermissionPrefix - 0x01
  • DisableListPrefix - 0x02

Client - list and describe CLI commands and gRPC and REST endpoints

Last modified on March 30, 2026