Usage Reporting & Payouts

You are paid for what you can prove. This page is the provider-side operational checklist for the usage-reporting and settlement machinery described conceptually in Usage Reporting and Escrow & Settlement.

Enable the pipeline

Settlement and chain submission must both be on in provider-daemon.yaml:

settlement:
  enabled: true
  settlement_interval: "1h"
  dispute_window: "24h"
  reconciliation_interval: "6h"
  max_pending_records: 100

chain_submitter:
  enabled: true
  gas_limit: 200000
  gas_price: "0.025uvirt"
  batch_size: 10
  batch_interval: "1m"

provider-daemon start --settlement.enabled=true --chain.rpc=http://localhost:26657

The daily rhythm

Time	Action
Every hour (XX:00–XX:05)	Collect metrics → build records → anomaly checks → batched chain submission
00:00 UTC	Daily settlement cycle begins
00:15 UTC	Unsettled usage records processed
00:30 UTC	Billable line items generated
01:00 UTC	Settlement transactions submitted
02:00 UTC	Reconciliation pass

Money movement: a usage record submitted at hour H becomes payable after the 24-hour dispute window, then settles in the next cycle. Budget your cash flow for roughly a one-day lag between delivery and payout.

Protect your revenue

Three things stop your money; monitor all three.

Disputes. Records under dispute cannot settle. Watch provider_daemon_active_disputes, and respond quickly:
Terminal window
```
virtengine query settlement disputes --status pending --provider <your-address>
```
Reconciliation discrepancies. Provider metrics are cross-checked against platform metrics; drift above thresholds escalates: 5–10% alerts, 10–25% forces review, >25% blocks settlement. Watch provider_daemon_reconciliation_score (alert below 50) and:
Terminal window
```
virtengine query settlement reconciliation-status --allocation-id <alloc-id>
```
Submission failures. Failed submissions retry 3 times, then accumulate. Alert on provider_daemon_submission_failures_total and a provider_daemon_pending_records backlog above 500.

When something goes wrong

A dispute is accepted — a correction record referencing the original is created and re-tracked; the corrected amount settles normally. Your dispute rate is a reputational signal, so treat root causes seriously.
Settlement is blocked by reconciliation — find the metric source divergence (container metrics vs. platform component usage) before requesting re-settlement; auto-correction is available but off by default (auto_correct: false).

You need to force a settlement (e.g., after resolving a blocker):

virtengine tx settlement settle-order --order-id order-1234567890 --from provider