Lighthouse Network

Understanding the Lighthouse temporal anchoring network.

What is Lighthouse?

Lighthouse is Fairseq's distributed network for temporal anchoring. It provides a global, verifiable timeline that all proofs reference, ensuring temporal consistency across the system.

Epochs

Lighthouse operates on epochs, which are fixed time intervals (currently 10 seconds). Each epoch produces a unique hash that serves as a temporal anchor point.

Epoch Structure

{
  "epoch_number": 1234567,
  "epoch_hash": "0x7a8b9c...",
  "timestamp": 1704067200,
  "previous_hash": "0x4d5e6f..."
}

How Proofs Use Lighthouse

When a proof is generated:

1. The current Lighthouse epoch is recorded as the start anchor
2. Proof generation occurs
3. The ending epoch is recorded as the end anchor
4. Both anchors are embedded in the proof

Querying Lighthouse

// Get current epoch
const epoch = await client.lighthouse.currentEpoch();

// Get specific epoch
const historicalEpoch = await client.lighthouse.getEpoch(1234567);