hive-activity-sidecar

A small, standalone Node.js service that counts the number of distinct Hive accounts active in the last 30 minutes and exposes that number via a single local HTTP endpoint.

Designed to run as a sidecar alongside a Next.js app on the same VPS. The Next.js app proxies the count to the browser — no browser ever polls Hive directly.

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How it works

Hive produces a block every ~3 seconds. On startup the sidecar bulk-fetches the last 600 blocks (30 minutes worth), then polls for new blocks every 30 seconds. Any account that appears as a signer or actor in an operation within the window is counted. The window self-prunes — accounts that haven't been seen for 30 minutes are evicted automatically.

One poller. One number. One source of truth.

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Project structure

index.js           — entry point, wires everything together
hive-client.js     — beacon node discovery, dhive client, 60-min node refresh
rolling-window.js  — in-memory Map with upsert + evict logic
poller.js          — block fetching loop and account extraction
server.js          — Express HTTP server (localhost only)
ecosystem.config.js— PM2 process config
tests/             — Jest test suite (21 tests)

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API

The sidecar binds to 127.0.0.1:3099 only — never exposed to the public internet.

GET /active-users

{ "count": 2104, "warming": false, "updatedAt": "2026-06-12T14:32:00.000Z" }

• count — distinct accounts active in the last 30 minutes. null during warm-up.
• warming — true while the cold-start bulk fetch is in progress.
• updatedAt — ISO timestamp of the last successful poll tick.

GET /health

{ "status": "ok" }

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Getting started

npm install
cp .env.example .env
node index.js

The service logs progress to stdout:

[hive-sidecar] Starting bulk cold-start fetch from block 87654321…
[hive-sidecar] Cold-start complete. 1847 accounts in window. Starting poll loop.
[hive-sidecar] Tick — block 87654931 — 1923 active accounts

Run tests

npm test

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Production (PM2)

pm2 start ecosystem.config.js
pm2 save

The process will restart automatically on crash and survive VPS reboots after pm2 save.

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Configuration

All options are set via environment variables. See .env.example for the full list with defaults.

Variable	Default	Description
PORT	3099	Port to bind on localhost
POLL_INTERVAL_MS	30000	How often to fetch new blocks (ms)
WINDOW_MS	1800000	Rolling activity window size (ms)
BULK_BATCH_SIZE	50	Blocks per RPC call during cold-start
MIN_NODE_SCORE	80	Minimum beacon score to accept a node
BEACON_API_URL	https://beacon.peakd.com/api/nodes	Node discovery endpoint

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Next.js integration

Create app/api/active-users/route.ts in your Next.js app to proxy the sidecar:

import { NextResponse } from 'next/server';

const SIDECAR_URL = process.env.HIVE_ACTIVITY_SIDECAR_URL ?? 'http://127.0.0.1:3099';

export const dynamic = 'force-dynamic';
export const revalidate = 0;

export async function GET() {
  try {
    const res = await fetch(`${SIDECAR_URL}/active-users`, {
      signal: AbortSignal.timeout(3000),
    });
    if (!res.ok) return NextResponse.json({ count: null, warming: false }, { status: 200 });
    const data = await res.json();
    return NextResponse.json(data, {
      status: 200,
      headers: { 'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=30, stale-while-revalidate=60' },
    });
  } catch {
    return NextResponse.json({ count: null, warming: false }, { status: 200 });
  }
}

Add to .env.local:

HIVE_ACTIVITY_SIDECAR_URL=http://127.0.0.1:3099