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+---
+title: Builder Observability
+description: Internal tooling and data sources for investigating Tempo block building and validation performance, outliers, and execution breakdowns.
+---
+
+# Builder Observability
+
+Tooling and workflows for investigating Tempo block building and validation performance. The goal is to quickly identify outliers (slow builds, timed-out proposals, slow validations) and drill into per-node execution breakdowns.
+
+## Workflow
+
+The investigation loop:
+
+1. **Spot an outlier** — monitor [ValScope](#valscope) or Grafana dashboards for slow proposals, builds, or validations
+2. **Inspect the network view** — open the block/view in ValScope to see per-validator timelines across the network
+3. **Drill into execution** — jump to [BlockScope](#blockscope) for a detailed per-node execution breakdown (traces, spans, timeline)
+
+## Tools
+
+### ValScope
+
+Real-time validator monitoring dashboard. Ingests consensus and execution logs from all validators, correlates events into per-block timelines, and serves a live web UI.
+
+- **Repo:** [tempoxyz/valscope](https://github.com/tempoxyz/valscope)
+- **Testnet:** `dev-joshie:3004` (Tailscale)
+- **Mainnet:** `dev-joshie:3005` (Tailscale)
+
+**What it shows:**
+- Live block and view tables with validator health stats
+- Per-block swim-lane timelines showing events across all validators
+- Consensus analytics — gas vs quorum scatter, quorum latency, receive delay heatmap
+- Execution analytics — gas vs build time, build time dumbbell, persistence metrics
+- Nullified (failed) consensus views
+
+**Key pages:**
+| Page | Route | Description |
+|---|---|---|
+| Overview | `/` | Live block + view tables, validator health |
+| Consensus | `/consensus` | Quorum latency, receive delays |
+| Execution | `/execution` | Build times, persistence metrics |
+| Block Detail | `/blocks/:height` | Full event timeline for a committed block |
+| View Detail | `/epoch/:epoch/views/:view` | Full event timeline for a consensus view |
+
+**Validator configs:**
+- [Testnet validators](https://github.com/tempoxyz/valscope/blob/main/apps/api/validators.toml)
+- [Mainnet validators](https://github.com/tempoxyz/valscope/blob/main/apps/api/validators-mainnet.toml)
+
+### BlockScope
+
+Execution-level dashboard for comparing block processing across clients. Shows per-block trace breakdowns, execution timelines, and mempool overlap analysis.
+
+- **Repo:** [tempoxyz/blockscope](https://github.com/tempoxyz/blockscope)
+- **Current deploy:** `dev-alexey:5173` (Tailscale, port-forwarded — being migrated)
+
+**What it shows:**
+- Block-by-block comparison across execution clients (reth, nethermind, ethrex)
+- Per-block execution trace timeline (state root, sub-blocks, EVM execution)
+- Mempool overlap analysis — how much of each block was in the local txpool
+- Per-builder block history with overlap stats
+
+**Key pages:**
+| Page | Route | Description |
+|---|---|---|
+| Overview | `/` | Block comparison table across clients |
+| Block Detail | `/blocks/:height` | Execution breakdown with trace timeline |
+| Mempool | `/mempool` | Gas usage vs overlap scatter plot |
+| Builder Detail | `/builder/:name` | Per-builder block history |
+
+## Data Sources
+
+All endpoints are internal Tailscale hostnames — requires being on the Tempo tailnet.
+
+| Service | Env Var | What it does | Testnet | Mainnet |
+|---|---|---|---|---|
+| External VLogs | `VLOGS_URL` | Logs from partner/external validators (VictoriaLogs) | `dev-euw-vl-partners.tail388b2e.ts.net` | _(none)_ |
+| Internal VLogs | `VLOGS_INTERNAL_URL` | Logs from Tempo's own nodes — structured reth output during build/validation (VictoriaLogs) | `stg-nae-vl-internal.tail388b2e.ts.net` | `prd-nae-vl-internal.tail388b2e.ts.net` |
+| VM External | `VM_EXTERNAL_URL` | Prometheus-style metrics (block times, gas, peers) from partner nodes (VictoriaMetrics) | `dev-euw-vm-partners.tail388b2e.ts.net` | same (namespace-filtered) |
+| VM Internal | `VM_INTERNAL_URL` | Prometheus-style metrics (CPU, memory, block processing) from Tempo's own nodes (VictoriaMetrics) | `stg-nae-vm-internal.tail388b2e.ts.net` | `prd-nae-vm-internal.tail388b2e.ts.net` |
+| Tempo Traces | `TEMPO_URL` | Distributed traces/spans — powers execution timeline breakdowns. **Internal nodes only.** (Grafana Tempo) | `stg-nae-grafana-tempo.tail388b2e.ts.net` | `prd-nae-grafana-tempo.tail388b2e.ts.net` |
+| Namespace | `NETWORK` | Cluster/namespace selector | `moderato-stable` | `tempo-mainnet-stable` |
+
+## Known Outlier Patterns
+
+Issues surfaced through monitoring:
+
+- **Execution cache mutex contention** — `Updated execution cache` blocked for 400ms+ during fork/reorg scenarios. Tracked in [RETH-498](https://linear.app/tempoxyz/issue/RETH-498)
+- **Late build start** — building starts after the view has already begun, reducing available build time. See [tempo#2952](https://github.com/tempoxyz/tempo/pull/2952)
+- **Persistence during building** — disk persistence overlapping with block building, observed on memory-constrained machines
+- **Long-running newPayload** — inability to cancel an in-progress `newPayload` execution
+
+## Limitations
+
+- **External validators have no traces/spans** — only logs and metrics are available for partner nodes. Detailed execution breakdowns (Grafana Tempo) are internal-only.
+- **New instrumentation requires a release** — adding new spans or logs to testnet/mainnet requires shipping a new Tempo version. Existing instrumentation must be used until then.
+- **ValScope log parsing limitations** — currently parses log lines with regex, which can be slow and sometimes misses events that need timestamp-based correlation.
diff --git a/vocs.config.ts b/vocs.config.ts
index 9ebdd60..f5ee342 100644
--- a/vocs.config.ts
+++ b/vocs.config.ts
@@ -551,6 +551,16 @@ export default defineConfig({
           },
         ],
       },
+      {
+        text: 'Observability',
+        collapsed: true,
+        items: [
+          {
+            text: 'Builder Observability',
+            link: '/guide/observability/builder-observability',
+          },
+        ],
+      },
       // {
       //   text: 'Infrastructure & Tooling',
       //   items: [