There are many providers for what we like to call “Tezos node storage artifacts”- snapshots and tarballs of Tezos filesystems. There are also many tools that rely on these artifacts and require information about their block height, size, etc.
Metadata about these artifacts is important, and the metadata consistency- even more so.
curl https://xtz-shots.io/tezos-snapshots.json
This is a collection of metadata for all of the Tezos node storage artifacts (snapshots and tarballs) we are currently offering on xtz-shots.
https://xtz-shots.io/
For tools like Tezos Packaging, Kiln, and BakeBuddy to work correctly- expected information (metadata) about these artifacts needs to be consistent. This is why we’re creating a standard form on xtz-shots for all providers to follow and collaborate on.
Oxhead Alpha’s tool to deploy tezos nodes in the cloud tezos-k8s also utilizes this metadata. When launching a node for a given network (mainnet, ghostnet…), the right artifact will be automatically downloaded and your new nodes will be synced in minutes.
We are hosting a public schema repo (github.com/oxheadalpha/tezos-snapshot-metadata-schema) that we hope the community will use to discuss and suggest changes/improvements.
This schema will be released to oxheadalpha.com/schema and hopefully other providers will use it as the community iterates and collaborates on it.
The metadata for all Tezos node storage artifacts (snapshtos and tarballs) will validated against this schema so you can rest assured that the data you expect will be there, and your tools will work as expected.
If other providers follow suit you can also rest assured your tools will work with their artifacts as well!