How to Test your Mesh Implementation

​

Overview

You can use the mesh-cli tool to test your Mesh API implementation. Once your implementation passes through the check:data and check:construction tests, it’s a few steps away from being used in services that use Mesh API.

​

Prerequisites

​

1. Install the mesh-cli tool in your local directory

Download the binary into a ./bin directory (relative to your current directory) with the following command:

curl -sSfL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/coinbase/mesh-cli/master/scripts/install.sh | sh -s

The binary will be installed inside the ./bin directory (relative to the directory where you ran the installation command).

• Note: Downloading binaries from the GitHub application will cause permission errors on Mac.

To download the binary into a specific directory, run the following command:

curl -sSfL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/coinbase/mesh-cli/master/scripts/install.sh | sh -s -- -b <relative directory>

​

2. Create your configuration file

Read How to Write a Configuration File to learn how to create a configuration file for mesh-cli testing. You can find example configuration files in the examples/configuration directory. You can also find example configuration files for running tests against a Bitcoin Mesh implementation (configuration file) and an Ethereum Mesh implementation (configuration file).

You can also create a default configuration file with the mesh-cli tool’s configuration:create command.

​

3. Write the check:construction tests in Mesh DSL.

Read our How to Write a Mesh DSL File documentation to learn how to create the tests.

​

4. Disable complex checks (for now)

If you are just getting started with your implementation, you may want to disable balance tracking (did any address balance go below zero?) and reconciliation (does the balance I calculated match the balance returned by the /account/balance endpoint?). Take a look at this simple configuration for an example of how to do this.

If you’d like to add more details, see our How to Disable Complex Checks documentation.

After you’re done testing, be sure to enable these complex checks again! Your Mesh API implementation is complete when these complex checks pass the mesh-cli tool testing.

​

Run the Tool

Run the mesh-cli tool from the command line with this command: mesh-cli [command]. You must run the tool with a command. Otherwise, the default return is the same as the return for the mesh-cli help command.

If there are no issues found while running check:data or check:construction, it will exit with a 0 status code. If there are any issues, it will exit with a 1 status code. It can be useful to run this command as an integration test for any changes to your implementation.

​

Commands

You can use the following commands with the mesh-cli tool.

​

Flags

Use the following flags with the commands for the mesh-cli tool.

​

Example

The following example runs the check:data command with the —configuration-file flag.

mesh-cli check:data --configuration-file config.json

The command’s output will resemble the following example:

Success: Reconciliation Coverage End Condition [Coverage: 100.000000%]

+--------------------+--------------------------------+--------+
|  CHECK:DATA TESTS  |          DESCRIPTION           | STATUS |
+--------------------+--------------------------------+--------+
| Request/Response   | Mesh implementation         | PASSED |
|                    | serviced all requests          |        |
+--------------------+--------------------------------+--------+
| Response Assertion | All responses are correctly    | PASSED |
|                    | formatted                      |        |
+--------------------+--------------------------------+--------+
| Block Syncing      | Blocks are connected into a    | PASSED |
|                    | single canonical chain         |        |
+--------------------+--------------------------------+--------+
| Balance Tracking   | Account balances did not go    | PASSED |
|                    | negative                       |        |
+--------------------+--------------------------------+--------+
| Reconciliation     | No balance discrepancies were  | PASSED |
|                    | found between computed and     |        |
|                    | live balances                  |        |
+--------------------+--------------------------------+--------+

+--------------------------+--------------------------------+-------------+
|     CHECK:DATA STATS     |          DESCRIPTION           |    VALUE    |
+--------------------------+--------------------------------+-------------+
| Blocks                   | # of blocks synced             |       92610 |
+--------------------------+--------------------------------+-------------+
| Orphans                  | # of blocks orphaned           |           0 |
+--------------------------+--------------------------------+-------------+
| Transactions             | # of transactions processed    |       93674 |
+--------------------------+--------------------------------+-------------+
| Operations               | # of operations processed      |      374511 |
+--------------------------+--------------------------------+-------------+
| Accounts                 | # of accounts seen             |          97 |
+--------------------------+--------------------------------+-------------+
| Active Reconciliations   | # of reconciliations performed |      138996 |
|                          | after seeing an account in a   |             |
|                          | block                          |             |
+--------------------------+--------------------------------+-------------+
| Inactive Reconciliations | # of reconciliations performed |      849330 |
|                          | on randomly selected accounts  |             |
+--------------------------+--------------------------------+-------------+
| Exempt Reconciliations   | # of reconciliation failures   |           0 |
|                          | considered exempt              |             |
+--------------------------+--------------------------------+-------------+
| Failed Reconciliations   | # of reconciliation failures   |           0 |
+--------------------------+--------------------------------+-------------+
| Skipped Reconciliations  | # of reconciliation skipped    |           0 |
+--------------------------+--------------------------------+-------------+
| Reconciliation Coverage  | % of accounts that have been   | 100.000000% |
|                          | reconciled                     |             |
+--------------------------+--------------------------------+-------------+

​

Testing Destination Tag Blockchains

You can test the Mesh implementation of a blockchain that uses destination tags with a Workflow that you can add to your Mesh DSL file.

1. Manually generate the recipient account address and the corresponding destination tag from the blockchain wallet or tool you’re testing.
2. Write your Mesh DSL file transfer Workflows to test the destination tag. You can follow the example in the Destination Tag Support section of the How to Write a Mesh DSL File documentation.
3. Enter the recipient address and destination tag that you generated in step 1 in these fields in your transfer Workflow:
   • The address field in recipient_account: recipient_account = {"address":"a1d2d3r4e5s6s7"}
   • The memo field in transfer.preprocess_metadata: transfer.preprocess_metadata = {"memo":"destination-tag"}
4. Run the check:construction command and check the results. If your results are correct, your output should be similar to the output in the Example section.

​

Frequently Asked Questions

​

Which command should I run first?

This will depend on what goals you’re trying to accomplish. We suggest that you run the check:data test first. The reason is that this test may take a long time, depending on your configuration. If the check:data test has to check all of the accounts in older blockchains, that test can take a long time to finish.

(Fortunately, if there are any errors that end the check:data test before it’s checked all the information you want it to check, the test will restart at the last block where it left off.)

After the check:data test completes, we suggest that you run the check:construction test.

​

Can I run the check:data and check:construction commands at the same time?

You must run the check:data and check:construction commands separately. They cannot be run at the same time. The check:data test may take a long time to complete on older blockchains with lots of blocks. (We’re talking about weeks, maybe even a month or more!) If you are testing on the mainnet network, be aware that this situation will likely occur for older blockchains.

​

What does the pprof profile do?

The pprof profile is a Golang tool that helps with performance optimization. You can use this tool to know which resources your system is using before or after you run the mesh-cli tool for testing your Mesh API implementations. For more information, visit Google’s pprof repository in GitHub.