Chainlink Keepers is a decentralized transaction automation solution that allows smart contracts to effectively automate important functions and DevOps tasks in a reliable, “trust-minimized”, and cost-efficient way.
Blockchain developers, teams, and distributed autonomous organizations or DAOs are able to leverage Chainlink Keepers as a type of off-chain computation layer to automate various functions and tap into greater utility.
Chainlink Keepers are currently helping smart contract developers on Ethereum, Polygon, and Binance Smart Chain to create decentralized applications (dApps) that are “fully automated end-to-end,” according to an update from Chainlink.
The developers have examined why smart contracts require secure and decentralized automation services.
According to the update, an overlooked characteristic of smart contracts is that they “cannot trigger their own functions.”
These contracts need to be triggered “by an external entity through an on-chain transaction to run certain functions.” Although certain protocols like automated market makers (AMMs) may rely on users to initiate transactions to “wake up” the contract, many smart contracts “need an external entity known as a ‘keeper’ to monitor predefined conditions and trigger the contract when those conditions are met,” Chainlink’s blog post noted.
The post further explained that such conditions may include “reaching a specific moment in time, the occurrence of a specific event, or the execution of a complex off-chain computation.”
Before keeper services, smart contract development teams “had to set up centralized servers or use DevOps teams to manually trigger transactions.” But this approach “not only introduces a central point of failure that subjects the protocol to potential failure and downtime but also consumes precious development resources that could be spent improving the underlying business logic of the protocol or expanding its features.”
As noted in the update:
“Chainlink Keepers are decentralized transaction automation bots that enable smart contracts to operate autonomously. Developers can submit custom jobs to Chainlink Keepers outlining the smart contract functions that should be called based on specific conditions, and Keepers then monitor those conditions through secure off-chain computation and trigger the functions when they are reached.”
The result is that developers may increase the uptime “guarantees” of their decentralized applications, “save on development costs, simplify user experience, and create feature-rich hybrid smart contracts that are fully automated end-to-end.”
Chainlink Keepers enable “extensive” smart contract automation use cases, iuch as basic automation and DevOps tasks like “replacing a centralized script to advanced off-chain computation to enable gas savings, security, or confidentiality.”
Importantly, Keepers unlock new decentralized functionality that “wasn’t previously possible in the blockchain ecosystem, with even more use cases enabled when Keepers are combined with other Chainlink services such as Chainlink Price Feeds and Chainlink VRF.”
There are reportedly a collection of DeFi apps powered by Chainlink Keepers, while many development teams are “actively working on integrating Keepers into their protocols.”
The secure, trust-minimized automation of recurring smart contract functions is “a feat many development teams strive for, and this trend will continue to drive more demand towards transaction automation solutions that offer a way to fully decentralize dApps end-to-end and empower developers to create blockchain-based applications that stand out in comparison to legacy alternatives.”
For more details on this update, check here.