Keepers
Backend jobs that submit permissionless protocol maintenance transactions.
Keepers submit transactions for protocol actions that are valid on-chain but not initiated directly by a user at that moment.
Responsibilities
Keepers handle:
- Execute pending limit orders.
- Execute triggered TP/SL orders.
- Auto-exercise expired in-the-money options.
- Settle expired futures.
- Liquidate unhealthy perpetual and expiry-futures positions.
- Refresh borrow-fee and volatility state when those paths need an update.
On-Chain Validation
Keeper actions are still validated by the smart contract. A keeper cannot execute an order, TP/SL, settlement, or liquidation unless the on-chain preconditions are satisfied.
This means the keeper is an automation layer, not a trusted authority. If a keeper submits a transaction too early, with wrong accounts, stale prices, or invalid position state, the program rejects it.
Backend Role
The backend watches indexed protocol state and market data, then decides when to submit keeper transactions. The backend can be wrong or delayed without changing the source of truth: the smart contract still decides whether a keeper action is valid.
If keeper infrastructure is down, user-initiated actions can still work, but automated actions such as expired settlement, auto-exercise, liquidation, and triggered TP/SL execution may be delayed until a keeper runs again.