Objective

Cap disk utilization growth across archival nodes (including CometBFT indexing and Cosmos SDK app state) to a maximum of ~2GB per week and reduce infrastructure costs immediately by tuning indexing, pruning, and data retention strategies.

Origin Document

Disk usage across archival nodes is increasing rapidly due to both CometBFT indexing and application-level state growth. This puts pressure on infrastructure budgets. Our short-term goal is to reduce costs; long-term, we aim to cap growth at ≤2GB/week.

Goals

• Reduce infrastructure costs associated with archival nodes as soon as possible
• Limit weekly disk growth (CometBFT + Cosmos SDK state) to ~2GB
• Tailor indexing and pruning configs by node role
• Preserve indexed query functionality for internal tooling and monetized endpoints
• Document recommendations and communicate best practices to the ecosystem

Deliverables

• Validator nodes: Turn indexing off and enable pruning
• Snapshot node: Keep indexing on, prune to recent history only
• Grove Free Public RPC nodes: Turn indexing off, use default pruning
• Grove Internal RPC nodes: Deploy new nodes with indexing on and extended pruning
• Grove Paid (via Portal) RPC nodes: Enable indexing once monetization via PATH is in place
• Alerts: Set up alerts for disk usage trends and growth rate, with links to dashboard and playbook

Non-goals / Non-deliverables

• Do not prioritize sync-from-scratch UX for now (just document known limitations)
• Do not update on-chain governance parameters until growth stabilizes

General deliverables

• Comments: Add rationale to node setup/config files on indexing/pruning choices

• Testing: Ensure nodes with new configurations start and behave as expected

• Makefile: Add targets/flags for launching nodes with different indexing/pruning profiles

• Documentation:

  • Publish a config matrix on dev.poktroll.com mapping archival node roles to recommended settings
  • Document sync-from-scratch caveats (with link to this issue)

Creator: @bryanchriswhite
Co-Owners: optional @Olshansk