Track validator performance

Your validator client logs what it sent. To see what the chain recorded (included attestations, proposed blocks, balance changes), use the beacon node's validator monitor, and check a block explorer from time to time for an outside view.

Before you begin

• A synced beacon node. See Is my node healthy?

• Your validator indices. The validator client logs them at startup, or look up your public keys on a block explorer:

  Validator activated index=...

Turn on the validator monitor

1. Add --monitor-indices to the beacon node, with a comma-separated list of indices:

   --monitor-indices=1234,5678

   It works for any validator, including ones run by another validator client or another machine.

2. Check that it started. At startup, and again once the node is synced, the beacon node logs:

   [2026-09-28 10:00:00.00]  INFO monitor: Starting service validatorIndices=[1234 5678]
   [2026-09-28 10:05:00.00]  INFO monitor: Synced to head epoch, starting reporting performance epoch=385801

The monitor keeps its statistics in memory; they reset when the beacon node restarts.

What it reports

Each time a block includes one of your attestations:

[2026-09-28 10:06:12.00]  INFO monitor: Attestation included balanceChange=13512 correctHead=true correctSource=true correctTarget=true head=0x68656c6c6f2d inclusionSlot=12345652 newBalance=32012345678 slot=12345651 source=0x68656c6c6f2d target=0x68656c6c6f2d validatorIndex=1234

Field	Meaning
slot → inclusionSlot	The attestation for slot 12345651 was included one slot later. Sooner is better.
correctSource, correctTarget, correctHead	Whether each vote was correct. correctTarget=false costs rewards.
newBalance, balanceChange	Balance in Gwei, and the change since the last event.

Other lines:

• When you propose:

  Proposed beacon block was included

• During sync committee duty:

  Sync committee contribution included

• If something is badly wrong:

  Attester slashing was included
  Proposer slashing was included

Every 5 epochs, a summary:

[2026-09-28 10:32:00.00]  INFO monitor: Aggregated performance since launch attestationInclusion=100.00% averageInclusionDistance=1.0 balanceChangePct=0.01% correctlyVotedHeadPct=98.00% correctlyVotedSourcePct=100.00% correctlyVotedTargetPct=100.00% startBalance=32000000000 startEpoch=385801 totalAggregations=0 totalProposedBlocks=0 totalRequested=5 totalSyncContributions=0 validatorIndex=1234

The monitor also exports monitor_* metrics with a validator_index label, for example monitor_timely_target, which you can graph and alert on as in Dashboards and alerts.

If you run many keys with --disable-account-metrics, the monitor on one beacon node gives you per-validator visibility back.

Use a block explorer

An explorer sees your validator from outside, so it catches problems your own node can't report, such as the whole machine being offline.

• beaconcha.in for Mainnet, hoodi.beaconcha.in for Hoodi. Search your index or public key.
• Add your validators to a beaconcha.in dashboard to get email or app notifications for missed attestations, proposals, and balance drops.

What good looks like

Measure	Good	Look into it if
Attestations included	99% or more	Several misses in a row.
Correct target votes	99% or more	It drops for hours.
Correct head votes	Most, not all	It's much lower than other validators on the explorer.
Inclusion distance	1 slot on average	Consistently above 1.
Balance	Rises most epochs	It falls for several epochs in a row.

A missed attestation during a restart or an update is normal and costs about what it would have earned. If the whole network is missing attestations at the same time (low participation on the explorer), the problem isn't your node.