ACDT #102 · Hoodi fork postponed Revisit after audit
AllCoreDevs - Testing #102 · 2026-10-26
Testnet fork delayed by at least 2 weeks until the security audit is complete
The Hoodi testnet fork was postponed by at least 2 weeks after a security report said the gas repricing EIPs 8037 and 8038 interact with deployed contracts in unexpected ways. The schedule will be reset after the external audit results, and spec changes are kept only as a last resort.
Why it matters
After reports that already deployed contracts could break, the entire Glamsterdam testnet schedule is tied to the audit results. The impact on both users and L2s is large enough that some pointed out that if 8037 is removed from the fork, the gas limit cannot be raised safely and optimizations like BAL become meaningless.
Decisions
- Hoodi fork postponed: The Hoodi fork schedule was pushed back by at least 2 weeks and will be revisited after the audit is complete. Testnet upgrades are paused until the analysis of the impact range of EIP-8037/8038 is finished.
- Builder onboarding fix: The builder onboarding fix (consensus-specs PR #5736) was approved and will be merged this week. At the fork, only deposits with an explicit 0x0B prefix are treated as builders. This preserves the staking protocol invariant that a deposit always results in a validator.
- getPayload immediate response: The GetPayload timeout definition was removed (execution-apis PR #958 merged). This means the execution layer (EL) must respond immediately when a request arrives instead of waiting for a better block.
- Shorter slots on hold: Shorter slots will stay as a feature branch and will not be merged into the Heze main spec until a majority of clients agree. The slot shortening proposal is not yet part of the official spec.
Discussion
EIP-8037/8038 security issue and Hoodi postponement
After a security firm reported that two gas repricing EIPs interact with deployed contracts in unexpected ways, the call discussed whether to postpone the Hoodi fork and whether to change the spec.
Outcome: Schedule decision 00:24:42
Removing the getPayload timeout
On devnets, some EL clients delayed their getPayload responses to build more expensive blocks, causing repeated timeouts. The call discussed a change that removes the timeout definition itself and requires an immediate response.
Outcome: Confirmed 00:36:39
Payload gas limit gossip check
Because ePBS makes it easier to spread invalid payloads, a proposal was made for the consensus layer (CL) to filter out payloads in the gossip stage by checking the transaction count against the gas limit.
Shorter slots spec merge strategy
With the shorter slots implementation spread across three PRs and confusion over which commit to use as the test target, a dispute broke out over whether to merge it into the Heze spec.
Outcome: Decided 01:04:15
Glossary
- SFI: Scheduled for Inclusion. The status where inclusion in the next fork is confirmed.
- ePBS: Enshrined proposer-builder separation. A design that separates block proposal from block building at the protocol level.
- FOCIL: Fork-choice enforced inclusion lists. A mechanism that forces specified transactions to be included in a block.
- getPayload: An Engine API call in which the consensus layer (CL) asks the execution layer (EL) for the block body (payload).
- Backfill: The process in which a node that began syncing from a checkpoint fills in past blocks in reverse.
- Gossip: The P2P layer through which nodes propagate blocks and messages to each other.
- Hoodi: One of the public Ethereum testnets, used to verify upgrades before mainnet forks.
- Heze: The name of the Ethereum upgrade under discussion after Glamsterdam.