Snapshotter Core API
The Snapshotter Core API is the HTTP serving layer exposed by a snapshotter full node. In the current BDS architecture, this role is best understood as a resolver node: it resolves finalized protocol outputs into application-ready API responses.
For BDS consumers, the product-facing version of this idea is documented in:
Where Core API Fits
A data market ecosystem has three separate concerns:
- Data production: snapshotter lite or full nodes compute market snapshots and submit them for DSV finalization.
- Finalization: DSV validators finalize canonical CIDs and anchor those references in
ProtocolState. - Resolution and serving: a snapshotter full node reads finalized state, retrieves payloads, applies market-specific parsing, and serves HTTP responses.
The Core API belongs to the third layer. It should not be treated as a separate source of truth. The source of truth is finalized protocol state; the API is a resolver that makes that state useful for applications and agents.
Current BDS Resolver Path
The hosted BDS access path exposes this through metered /mpp/... routes. Route families are listed in the Endpoint Catalog.
Verification Contract
Core API responses for BDS should preserve enough provenance for consumers to verify the result. Agent-facing BDS responses include a verification object with the CID, epoch, project ID, protocol state contract, and data market contract.
Agents can then confirm the response with:
ProtocolState.maxSnapshotsCid(dataMarket, projectId, epochId)
See Verification in Agent Workflows for the practical flow used by MCP tools, bds-agent-py, and downstream alerts.