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VAAs
Messages emitted by contracts need to be verified by the guardians before they can be sent to the target chain. Once a majority of guardians reach consensus that an observation has been made, the message is wrapped up in a structure called a VAA which combines the message with the guardian signatures to form a proof.
These VAA's are ultimately what a smart contract on a receiving chain must process in order to receive a wormhole message.
VAA Format
VAA's contain two sections of data. The header section metadata about the current VAA and are mutated as the signatures are aggregated. The lower section second contains data that is deterministically derived from the message and therefore immutable.
This second section is the data that a guardian must sign. As this data is deterministically derived, each guardian is able to produce signatures without communicating with other guardians. Over time the signatures will accumulate until a consensus threshold is reached and the resulting VAA can be submitted on chain.
Header
1
byte version (VAA Version)
2
u32 guardian_set_index (Indicates which guardian set is signing)
3
u8 len_signatures (Number of signatures stored)
4
[][66]byte signatures (Collection of ecdsa signatures)
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Body
The body is deterministically derived from an on chain message. Any two guardians must derive the exact same body. This requirement exists so that there is always a one to one relationship between VAA's and messages to avoid double processing of messages.
1
u32 timestamp
2
u32 nonce
3
u16 emitter_chain
4
[32]byte emitter_address
5
u64 sequence
6
u8 consistency_level
7
[]byte payload
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Last modified 6mo ago
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Contents
VAA Format