Goldsky

Create a block explorer

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What it is

Creating a block explorer means indexing every block, transaction, log and trace of a chain, from its first block, into a database where anyone can look up an address, a transaction or a block, and reading live balances and contract state over RPC.

Chain teams need one when mainnet opens and explorer companies add chains often, because users, wallets and support teams check every transfer there, and an explorer that lags or still shows a block the chain dropped gives them the wrong answer.

Goldsky streams the chain’s history and each new block into your database with Turbo Pipelines, decoding contract events and correcting rows after reorgs, and serves live reads through Edge RPC, while contract verification, search and the pages stay with you.

How a block explorer gets its data

The diagram follows one chain from choosing what to index to the pages your explorer serves, and shows who does each step. Your setup may differ.

Pick chains and dataBlocks, transactions, logs and traces

TurboLoad every block since genesisHistory through archive RPC

TurboKeep up with new blocksDropped blocks deleted from your database

TurboDecode contract eventsWith ABIs fetched in the pipeline

Serve search and pagesLookups by hash, address and block

EdgeRead live stateBalances and calls at the latest block

Goldsky

Pick the chains and data to index
An explorer can only show what it has indexed, so start from what users look up.
List the chains, and for each the blocks, transactions, logs and traces you’ll show. Traces record internal calls between contracts, and leaving them out means value moved by a contract never appears on an address page.
Load every block since genesis
Handled by Goldsky Turbo
Users look up old transactions as often as new ones, so the index has to start at the first block.
An index that starts late shows addresses with missing transactions. A backfill from the first block needs archive data, because ordinary nodes drop old state.
Goldsky’s Turbo Pipelines Edge EVM datasets stream blocks, transactions, logs and traces from any EVM chain through Edge RPC, which routes historical requests to archive nodes, starting from earliest and carrying on at the chain tip.
Stream any EVM chain (opens in a new tab)
Keep up with new blocks and reorgs
Handled by Goldsky Turbo
An explorer that lags, or still shows a block the chain dropped, gives users the wrong answer.
New blocks have to land within moments, and blocks the chain replaces in a reorg have to disappear from search. Rows keyed on a block hash or log ID let each correction update the right row.
Each Edge EVM row carries a _gs_op column, c for an insert and d for a delete when a reorg orphans it, and a Postgres sink with a primary_key applies both, so the database converges to the canonical chain.
See how reorgs reach your database (opens in a new tab)
Decode contract events
Handled by Goldsky Turbo
Users want to read “transfer of 100 tokens to this address”, not encoded log data.
Each log and call is decoded with its contract’s ABI, so pages show event names and fields. ABIs come from contracts verified on your explorer or published by their teams, and a contract verified later still needs its past events decoded, or its early history stays raw.
Turbo Pipelines decodes logs with evm_log_decode and calls with evm_trace_decode in a SQL transform, using ABIs it fetches with _gs_fetch_abi, so rows land in your database already decoded. Keeping the raw logs as well lets you decode a contract verified later from rows you already hold.
Decode contract events in a pipeline (opens in a new tab)
Serve search and pages
An explorer is only useful if any address, transaction or block comes up quickly.
Your database indexes the tables for lookups by hash, address and block, and your API serves the pages. Balances and contract state change with every block, so read them live rather than from the index.
Read live state over RPC
Handled by Goldsky Edge
Current balances and contract reads come straight from the chain.
Pages call the chain for balances, contract code and reads at the latest block. A single provider that falls behind leaves every page showing stale numbers.
With Goldsky, Edge RPC serves those calls over HTTPS, fails over across several upstream providers and cross-validates their responses.
See how Edge RPC fails over (opens in a new tab)

What you control

Your team: Pick the chains and data to index
Serve search and pages

Questions and answers

How do you create a block explorer?

You create a block explorer by indexing every block, transaction, log and trace of a chain into a database, decoding contract events with their ABIs, and serving search and pages from that database, with live balances read over RPC. The index has to start at the chain’s first block and follow reorgs, so a lookup never shows a transaction the chain dropped. Open-source explorers bundle these pieces; building your own lets you choose the database and the pages.