Midnight Proofs:prover Optimization

Prover Optimization

Tune ZK prover performance for production workloads through memory optimization, parallelization, and infrastructure configuration.

When to Use

• Optimizing proof generation speed for high-throughput services
• Reducing memory usage during proof generation
• Configuring prover infrastructure (Docker, Kubernetes)
• Implementing parallel proof generation with worker pools
• Diagnosing and fixing prover performance bottlenecks

Key Concepts

Performance Factors

Memory Requirements

Proof generation is memory-intensive. Typical requirements:

Throughput Estimation

Proofs/hour = (Cores / Proofs-per-Core) * 3600 / Avg-Proof-Time-Seconds

Example: 8 cores, 2 proofs per core, 15 second proof time:

(8 / 2) * 3600 / 15 = 960 proofs/hour

References

Examples

Quick Start

1. Basic Memory Configuration

import { createProver } from '@midnight-ntwrk/midnight-js-prover';

const prover = await createProver({
  circuitKeysPath: './circuit-keys',
  memoryLimit: 8192,  // 8GB
  threads: 4,         // Number of worker threads
});

2. Environment Variables

# Node.js memory settings
export NODE_OPTIONS="--max-old-space-size=8192"

# Prover-specific settings
export PROVER_MEMORY_LIMIT=8192
export PROVER_THREADS=4
export PROVER_PRELOAD_CIRCUITS="transfer,mint,burn"

3. Docker Resource Limits

# docker-compose.yml
services:
  prover:
    image: prover-service:latest
    deploy:
      resources:
        limits:
          cpus: '4'
          memory: 8G
        reservations:
          cpus: '2'
          memory: 4G

Common Patterns

Circuit Key Preloading

// Preload at startup to avoid load-time latency
const prover = await createProver({
  circuitKeysPath: './circuit-keys',
  preloadCircuits: ['transfer', 'mint', 'burn'],
});

// Verify circuits are loaded
const status = await prover.getStatus();
console.log('Loaded circuits:', status.loadedCircuits);

Memory Monitoring

import v8 from 'v8';

function getMemoryUsage(): {
  heapUsed: number;
  heapTotal: number;
  external: number;
} {
  const stats = v8.getHeapStatistics();
  return {
    heapUsed: Math.round(stats.used_heap_size / 1024 / 1024),
    heapTotal: Math.round(stats.total_heap_size / 1024 / 1024),
    external: Math.round(stats.external_memory / 1024 / 1024),
  };
}

// Log memory before/after proof generation
console.log('Before:', getMemoryUsage());
await prover.prove(circuitId, witness);
console.log('After:', getMemoryUsage());

Backpressure Control

class BackpressureController {
  private activeProofs = 0;
  private maxConcurrent: number;
  private waitQueue: Array<() => void> = [];

  constructor(maxConcurrent: number) {
    this.maxConcurrent = maxConcurrent;
  }

  async acquire(): Promise<void> {
    if (this.activeProofs < this.maxConcurrent) {
      this.activeProofs++;
      return;
    }

    // Wait for a slot
    await new Promise<void>((resolve) => {
      this.waitQueue.push(resolve);
    });
    this.activeProofs++;
  }

  release(): void {
    this.activeProofs--;
    const next = this.waitQueue.shift();
    if (next) next();
  }

  async withBackpressure<T>(fn: () => Promise<T>): Promise<T> {
    await this.acquire();
    try {
      return await fn();
    } finally {
      this.release();
    }
  }
}

// Usage
const controller = new BackpressureController(4); // Max 4 concurrent proofs

await controller.withBackpressure(async () => {
  return await prover.prove(circuitId, witness);
});

Graceful Degradation

async function proveWithFallback(
  circuitId: string,
  witness: WitnessData
): Promise<Proof> {
  const memoryUsage = getMemoryUsage();

  // If memory is high, wait before starting new proof
  if (memoryUsage.heapUsed > 6000) {
    console.warn('High memory usage, waiting...');
    await new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, 5000));

    // Force garbage collection if available
    if (global.gc) {
      global.gc();
    }
  }

  try {
    return await prover.prove(circuitId, witness);
  } catch (error) {
    if (error.message.includes('out of memory')) {
      // Retry with reduced concurrency
      console.warn('OOM error, retrying after GC...');
      if (global.gc) global.gc();
      await new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, 2000));
      return await prover.prove(circuitId, witness);
    }
    throw error;
  }
}

Performance Metrics

import { Counter, Histogram, Gauge } from 'prom-client';

const proofDuration = new Histogram({
  name: 'proof_generation_duration_seconds',
  help: 'Proof generation duration',
  labelNames: ['circuit_id'],
  buckets: [1, 5, 10, 15, 30, 60],
});

const proofCounter = new Counter({
  name: 'proofs_generated_total',
  help: 'Total proofs generated',
  labelNames: ['circuit_id', 'status'],
});

const memoryGauge = new Gauge({
  name: 'prover_memory_usage_bytes',
  help: 'Current prover memory usage',
});

// Instrument proof generation
async function proveWithMetrics(
  circuitId: string,
  witness: WitnessData
): Promise<Proof> {
  const end = proofDuration.startTimer({ circuit_id: circuitId });
  memoryGauge.set(process.memoryUsage().heapUsed);

  try {
    const proof = await prover.prove(circuitId, witness);
    proofCounter.inc({ circuit_id: circuitId, status: 'success' });
    return proof;
  } catch (error) {
    proofCounter.inc({ circuit_id: circuitId, status: 'error' });
    throw error;
  } finally {
    end();
  }
}

Performance Considerations

Related Skills

• proof-generation - Server-side proof generation
• proof-caching - Cache proofs to reduce generation load
• proof-verification - Verify generated proofs

Related Commands

None currently defined.