JSON-RPC Surface

The Pixa chain's API is Hive's JSON-RPC over HTTPS, so Hive's method documentation at developers.hive.io applies with PIXA for HIVE and PXS for HBD. This page records what the public nodes actually serve: the endpoints, the namespaces and methods, how a call is routed, batches, limits, errors, the field renames, and what is not served. Differences from Hive explains the differences for a programmer; Developer Quickstart shows first calls.

Endpoints

All six run the same stack (Architecture) and serve the same chain; a program may use any and should fall back to another on failure, as the app does (Account Settings). Each answers GET /health with {"status":"ok"} from the gateway, which says nothing about whether hived behind it is in sync; for that, compare head_block_number from get_dynamic_global_properties with the clock.

Every call is an HTTPS POST to the root path with a JSON-RPC 2.0 body:

Shellcurl -s https://api.pixagram.com -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"condenser_api.get_dynamic_global_properties","params":[],"id":1}'

GET requests other than /health, and other paths, are not an API.

Namespaces and methods

The gateway in front of each node routes a call by its method name to one of two programs (Routing). jsonrpc.get_methods lists hived's 139 methods; Hivemind has no equivalent call, so its 66 are listed here from its code.

Served by hived (139 methods)

The full list is one call away:

Shellcurl -s https://api.pixagram.com -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"jsonrpc.get_methods","params":{},"id":1}'
curl -s https://api.pixagram.com -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"jsonrpc.get_signature","params":{"method":"database_api.find_accounts"},"id":1}'

Served by Hivemind (66 methods)

Hivemind also implements database_api.find_comments, find_votes and list_votes, hive.get_info, hive.db_head_state and a search-api.find_text, but the public nodes' gateway does not route any of them to it (What is not served). Its dispatcher also names condenser_api.get_state and get_account_votes, only to answer that they are not supported.

Routing

The gateway reads the method of each request (nginx.conf:18-51, 160-200):

1. The 23 condenser_api names above go to Hivemind.
2. Any method whose namespace is bridge, follow_api or tags_api goes to Hivemind.
3. Everything else goes to hived, after the gateway renames 19 Pixa field names in the body to Hive's (Field renames).

Two consequences of how it reads the body:

• Two routed names fail. condenser_api.get_discussions_by_promoted is on the gateway's Hivemind list but this Hivemind has no promoted sort, and condenser_api.get_account_votes is routed to Hivemind, which answers that it is no longer supported. condenser_api.get_state, which Hive front ends once used, is not on the list and reaches hived, which does not have it either.
• A body larger than the gateway's buffer, about 10 KiB, is not read. It goes to hived unrouted and unrenamed. A large bridge call therefore fails with Could not find API bridge, and a large broadcast keeps the bytes you signed, which is why the rename defect does not affect big artworks (Differences from Hive).

Batches

A JSON array of calls is passed through as one request, so it is routed by its first call:

Send social calls one at a time, and batch only chain calls.

Limits

Headers, compression and CORS

• Send Content-Type: application/json. The gateway sets it on the way to the backends regardless.
• Responses are compressed with zstd or gzip when the client's Accept-Encoding allows (Caddyfile:31).
• Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *, Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, POST, OPTIONS, Access-Control-Allow-Headers: Content-Type on every response, and OPTIONS answered with 204, so a browser page on any origin may call the API directly, as the app does (nginx.conf:205-217). A custom header other than Content-Type fails the browser's preflight.
• Because the gateway rewrites bodies, responses have no Content-Length; they are chunked.

Errors

Both programs answer a failed call with a JSON-RPC error object. Their shapes differ:

JSON{"jsonrpc":"2.0","error":{"code":-32003,"message":"Assert Exception:... You may only post once every 5 minutes.","data":{"code":10,"name":"assert_exception","message":"Assert Exception","stack":[...]}},"id":1}

Two more differences: hived returns id as sent, Hivemind returns it as a string ("1" for 1); and HTTP status is 200 for every JSON-RPC error, so a client must inspect the body. Only the gateway's own failures carry an HTTP status: 413, 504, or 502 when a backend is down.

Field renames

In responses from hived, the gateway renames 28 Hive field names to Pixa's; in requests to hived, 19 of them the other way (the table). Hivemind's responses are not renamed, and neither program's operation or method names change: database_api.find_hbd_conversion_requests keeps its name, author_reward keeps hbd_payout, and get_config prints HIVE_ constants. The renames apply to the whole body, including text, and only to bodies under about 10 KiB; a program that must see the bytes hived stores reads from its own node.

What is not served

What Hivemind reports differently

Three things a program must know when it reads social data from the public nodes:

• Reputation is empty. The tracker that computes it for Hivemind does not run on the public nodes, so condenser_api.get_account_reputations as routed to Hivemind returns 0 for every account, and bridge.get_profile, bridge.get_account_posts and bridge.get_ranked_posts return 25, the bottom of Hivemind's display scale, for everyone. hived's reputation_api.get_account_reputations has the real figures (Data Model).
• Vote rshares are a million times the chain's for votes cast before block 905,693 and equal to the chain's after (Differences from Hive).
• Posts are Hivemind's copies. hived serves no post text, and the gateway sends get_content and get_active_votes to Hivemind, although hived could answer the second from its own state (Data Model).

Compared with Hive

Sources

• Gateway: jussi/nginx.conf at commit 4a271e8: Hivemind namespaces and the 23 methods at lines 18-51, request renames 63-85, response renames 87-117, the server block 157-245; ssl-proxy/Caddyfile.
• hived at tag v1.30.0: the plugins an API node loads, Run an API Node; the shipped OpenAPI document, libraries/plugins/apis/documentation/openapi.json.
• Hivemind at commit 5765e21: the method dispatcher, hive/db/sql_scripts/postgrest/utilities/dispatch.sql and get_api_method.sql; the result limit, api_limits.sql.
• Live checks, 2026-10-05 and 2026-10-08, against the six endpoints: jsonrpc.get_methods (139), GET /health, batches in the three shapes, a 1 MiB and a 1.1 MiB body, bridge.get_ranked_posts with limit 20 and 21, OPTIONS preflight, response headers, bridge.get_profile and reputation_api.get_account_reputations for the same accounts.