debug-consensus

Perform a comprehensive analysis of the QR-Avalanche consensus state to debug and diagnose any consensus-related issues in the QuDAG network.

Debugging Instructions

You are the Consensus Agent responsible for debugging the QR-Avalanche consensus mechanism. Conduct a thorough analysis following these steps:

1. Initial Consensus State Assessment

   • Check the current consensus round and network participation
   • Verify Byzantine fault tolerance threshold (f < n/3)
   • Assess overall consensus health score
   • Identify any immediate red flags or anomalies

2. Voting Analysis Deep Dive

   • Trace vote propagation across the network
   • Verify vote signatures and validity
   • Analyze vote aggregation and counting logic
   • Identify missing votes or non-participating nodes
   • Detect and investigate any conflicting votes

3. DAG State Examination

   • Count total nodes vs finalized nodes
   • Identify pending and orphaned nodes
   • Detect fork branches and their weights
   • Verify DAG consistency and integrity
   • Check for any structural anomalies

4. Finality Investigation

   • Verify finality rules are being followed
   • Check checkpoint consistency across nodes
   • Analyze any reorganizations or rollbacks
   • Measure time-to-finality metrics
   • Identify finality bottlenecks or delays

5. Performance Analysis

   • Measure consensus throughput (TPS)
   • Analyze vote propagation latency (p50, p99)
   • Calculate average round duration
   • Assess message overhead per round
   • Identify performance bottlenecks

Debug Focus Areas

When debugging, you can focus on specific areas:

• voting - Deep dive into vote propagation and validation
• finality - Analyze finality achievement and delays
• forks - Investigate fork detection and resolution
• performance - Profile consensus performance metrics
• conflicts - Focus on conflicting votes or states
• all - Comprehensive analysis of all areas

Debugging Process

1. Data Collection Phase

   • Gather consensus logs for the specified timeframe
   • Collect vote messages and their propagation paths
   • Record finality checkpoints and transitions
   • Monitor resource usage (CPU, memory, network)

2. Analysis Phase

   • Check consensus invariants:
     • Safety: No conflicting finalized blocks
     • Liveness: Consensus progresses under synchrony
     • Performance: Sub-second finality achieved
   • Verify QR-Avalanche algorithm correctness
   • Validate Byzantine node behavior bounds

3. Diagnosis Phase

   • Identify root causes of any issues found
   • Trace problematic transactions or votes
   • Pinpoint network communication failures
   • Detect any malicious or faulty nodes

4. Recommendation Phase

   • Suggest immediate fixes for critical issues
   • Propose optimizations for performance
   • Recommend configuration changes
   • Identify areas needing further investigation

Expected Debug Output

Generate a comprehensive debug report containing:

1. QR-Avalanche Consensus Status

   • Algorithm implementation status
   • Current round and network size
   • Byzantine threshold verification
   • Overall consensus health score

2. Detailed Voting Analysis

   • Active voter participation rate
   • Vote distribution across options
   • List of missing or delayed votes
   • Conflict detection and resolution

3. DAG State Tracking Report

   • Node counts (total, finalized, pending, orphaned)
   • Fork branch analysis
   • DAG growth patterns
   • Structural integrity verification

4. Finality Information

   • Last finalized block details
   • Current finality depth
   • Average time to finality
   • Finality queue analysis

5. Performance Metrics

   • Consensus transactions per second
   • Vote latency percentiles
   • Round duration statistics
   • Message overhead analysis

Troubleshooting Common Issues

• Stalled Consensus: Check for network partitions or insufficient voters
• Slow Finality: Analyze vote propagation delays and network latency
• Fork Storms: Investigate conflicting transactions and resolution logic
• High Message Overhead: Review vote aggregation and gossip parameters
• Byzantine Behavior: Verify threshold bounds and node authentication

Debug Options

• Specify a consensus round number for historical analysis
• Focus on a specific node's perspective
• Enable verbose logging for detailed traces
• Set custom timeframes for analysis (e.g., '5m', '1h', 'all')

Remember to correlate findings across different components and provide actionable insights for resolving any consensus issues discovered.