9.8 KiB
Autoloop
The loop client contains functionality to dispatch loop out swaps automatically, according to a set of rules configured for your node's channels, within a budget of your choosing.
The autoloop functionality is disabled by default, and can be enabled using the following command:
loop setparams --autoout=true
Swaps that are dispatched by the autolooper can be identified in the output of
ListSwaps by their label field, which will contain: [reserved]: autoloop-out.
Even if you do not choose to enable the autolooper, we encourage you to
experiment with setting the parameters described in this document because the
client will log the actions that it would have taken to provide visibility into
its functionality. Alternatively, the SuggestSwaps rpc (loop suggestswaps
on the CLI) provides a set of swaps that the autolooper currently recommends,
which you can use to manually execute swaps if you'd like.
Note that autoloop parameters and rules are not persisted, so must be set on
restart. We recommend running loopd with --debuglevel=debug when using this
feature.
Channel Thresholds
To setup the autolooper to dispatch swaps on your behalf, you need to tell it which channels you would like it to perform swaps on, and the liquidity balance you would like on each channel. Desired liqudity balance is expressed using threshold incoming and outgoing percentages of channel capacity. The incoming threshold you specify indicates the minimum percentage of your channel capacity that you would like in incoming capacity. The outgoing thresold allows you to reserve a percentage of your balance for outgoing capacity, but may be set to zero if you are only concerned with incoming capcity.
The autolooper will perform swaps that push your incoming channel capacity to at least the incoming threshold you specify, while reserving at least the outgoing capacity threshold. Rules can be set as follows:
loop setrule {short channel id} --incoming_threshold={minimum % incoming} --outgoing_threshold={minimum % outgoing}
To remove a channel from consideration, its rule can simply be cleared:
loop setrule {short channel id} --clear
Fees
Fee control is one of the most important features of the autolooper, so we expose multiple fee related settings which can be used to tune the autolooper to your preference. Note that these fees are expressed on a per-swap basis, rather than as an overall budget.
On-Chain Fees
When performing a successful loop out swap, the loop client needs to sweep the on-chain HTLC sent by the server back into its own wallet.
Sweep Confirmation Target
To estimate the amount of on-chain fees that the swap will require, the client uses a confirmation target for the sweep - the number of blocks within which you would like this balance swept back to your wallet. The time to acquire your incoming liquidity is not dependent on sweep confirmation time, so we highly recommend setting a very large sweep confirmation target (up to 250 blocks), so that your sweep can go through with very low fees.
loop setparams --sweepconf={target in blocks}
Fee Market Awareness
The mempool often clears overnight, or on the weekends when fewer people are
using chain space. This is an opportune time for the autolooper to dispatch a
swap on your behalf while you sleep! Before dispatching a swap, the autolooper
will get a fee estimate for you on-chain sweep transaction (using its
sweepconftarget), and check it against the limit that has been configured.
The sweeplimit parameter can be set to configure the autolooper to only
dispatch in low-fee environments.
loop setparams --sweeplimit={limit in sat/vbyte}
Miner Fee
In the event where fees spike dramatically right after a swap is dispatched, it may not be worthwhile to proceed with the swap. The loop client always uses the latest fee estimation to sweep your swap within the desired target, but to account for this edge case where fees dramatically spike for an extended period of time, a maximum miner fee can be set to cap the amount that will be paid for your sweep.
loop setparams --maxminer={limit in satoshis}
Server Fees
Swap Fee
The server charges a fee for facilitating swaps. The autolooper can be limited to a set swap fee, expressed as a percentage of the total swap amount, using the following command:
loop setparams --maxswapfee={percentage of swap volume}
No-Show Fee
In the case of a no-show, the server will charge a fee to recoup its on-chain costs. This value will only be charged if your client goes offline for a long period of time after the server has published an on-chain HTLC and never completes the swap, or if it decides to abort the swap due to high on-chain fees. Both of these cases are unlikely, but this value can still be capped in the autolooper.
loop setparams --maxprepay={limit in satoshis}
Off-Chain Fees
The loop client dispatches two off-chain payments to the loop server - one for the swap prepayment, and one for the swap itself. The amount that the client will pay in off-chain fees for each of these payments can be limited to a percentage of the payment amount using the following commands:
Prepayment routing fees:
loop setparams --maxprepayfee={percentage of prepay amount}
Swap routing fees:
loop setparams --maxroutingfee={percentage of swap amount}
Budget
The autolooper operates within a set budget, and will stop executing swaps when this budget is reached. This budget includes the fees paid to the swap server, on-chain sweep costs and off-chain routing fees. Note that the budget does not include the actual swap amount, as this balance is simply shifted from off-chain to on-chain, rather than used up.
The budget value is expressed in satoshis, and can be set using the setparams
loop command:
loop setparams --autobudget={budget in satoshis}
Your autoloop budget can optionally be paired with a start time, which determines the time from which we will count autoloop swaps as being part of the budget. If this value is zero, it will consider all automatically dispatched swaps as being part of the budget.
The start time is expressed as a unix timestamp, and can be set using the
setparams loop command:
loop setparams --budgetstart={start time in seconds}
If your autolooper has used up its budget, and you would like to top it up, you can do so by either increasing the overall budget amount, or by increasing the start time to the present. For example, if you want to set your autolooper to have a budget of 100k sats for the month, you could set the following:
loop setparams --autobudget=100000 --autostart={beginning of month ts}
Dispatch Control
Configuration options are also exposed to allow you to control the rate at which swaps are automatically dispatched, and the autolooper's propensity to retry channels that have previously failed.
In Flight Limit
The number of swaps that the autolooper will dispatch at a time is controlled
by the autoinflight parameter. The default value for this parameter is 1, and
can be increased if you would like to perform more automated swaps simultaneously.
If you have set a very high sweep target for your automatically dispatched swaps,
you may want to increase this value, because the autolooper will wait for the
swap to fully complete, including the sweep confirming, before it dispatches
another swap.
loop setparams --autoinflight=2
Failure Backoff
Sometimes loop out swaps fail because they cannot find an off-chain route to the server. This may happen because there is a temporary lack of liquidity along the route, or because the peer that you need to perform a swap with simply does not have a route to the loop server's node. These swap attempts cost you nothing, but we set a backoff period so that the autolooper will not continuously attempt to perform swaps through a very unbalanced channel that cannot facilitate a swap.
The default value for this parameter is 24hours, and it can be updated as follows:
loop setparams --failurebackoff={backoff in seconds}
Swap Size
By default, the autolooper will execute a swap when the amount that needs to be rebalanced within a channel is equal to the swap server's minimum swap size. This means that it will dispatch swaps more regularly, and ensure that channels are not run down too far below their configured threshold. If you are willing to allow your liquidity to drop further than the minimum swap amount below your threshold, a custom minimum swap size can be set. If autolooper is configured with a larger minimum swap size, it will allow channels to drop further below their target threshold, but will perform fewer swaps, potentially saving on fees.
loop setparams --minamt={amount in satoshis}
Swaps are also limited to the maximum swap amount advertised by the server. If you would like to reduce the size of swap that autoloop created, this value can also be configured.
loop setparams --maxamt={amount in satoshis}
The server's current terms are provided by the loop terms cli command. The
values set for minimum and maximum swap amount must be within the range that
the server supports.
Manual Swap Interaction
The autolooper will not dispatch swaps over channels that are already included in manually dispatched swaps - for loop out, this would mean the channel is specified in the outgoing channel swap, and for loop in the channel's peer is specified as the last hop for an ongoing swap. This check is put in place to prevent the autolooper from interfering with swaps you have created yourself. If there is an ongoing swap that does not have a restriction placed on it (no outgoing channel set, or last hop), then the autolooper will take no action until it has resolved, because it does not know how that swap will affect liquidity balances.