[Feature]: make timeout_height time based

[tac0turtle]

Summary

Dydx recently brought up wanting to use time instead of block height for unordered txs. This would need a new field in the TX, which is the opposite direction we wanted to go with making the tx simpler.

Using time is simpler because its easier to understand time as a user than block height since blocks have different times.

Problem Definition

No response

Proposed Feature

Modify timeout_height to be time based instead of block height.

We would need to use the blocks time to check the timeout instead of local time. This would simplify the UX for end users since its easier to understand time over heights.

[hieuvubk]

So user will pass timeout_height as a timestamp right?

[tac0turtle]

we should think about possibly renaming it to timeout. need to have a discussion internally about this

[hieuvubk]

Yep, will be a big refactor

[alpe]

👍 much better UX from a client perspective

[kocubinski]

Tangibly at the API layer, adding a field like

  google.protobuf.Timestamp timeout_timestamp = 5;

would be non-breaking, and timeout_height (at pos 3) would remain in the spec. So I think it looks like we support both? I tried to estimate the complexity of this but couldn't find where TimeoutHeight is used in the SDK.

[tac0turtle]

Tangibly at the API layer, adding a field like

  google.protobuf.Timestamp timeout_timestamp = 5;

would be non-breaking, and timeout_height (at pos 3) would remain in the spec. So I think it looks like we support both? I tried to estimate the complexity of this but couldn't find where TimeoutHeight is used in the SDK.

we use it here only:

cosmos-sdk/x/auth/ante/basic.go

Lines 250 to 270 in 720c108

	// ValidateTx implements an TxValidator for the TxHeightTimeoutDecorator
	// type where the current block height is checked against the tx's height timeout.
	// If a height timeout is provided (non-zero) and is less than the current block
	// height, then an error is returned.
	func (txh TxTimeoutHeightDecorator) ValidateTx(ctx context.Context, tx sdk.Tx) error {
	timeoutTx, ok := tx.(TxWithTimeoutHeight)
	if !ok {
	return errorsmod.Wrap(sdkerrors.ErrTxDecode, "expected tx to implement TxWithTimeoutHeight")
	}
	timeoutHeight := timeoutTx.GetTimeoutHeight()
	headerInfo := txh.env.HeaderService.HeaderInfo(ctx)
	if timeoutHeight > 0 && uint64(headerInfo.Height) > timeoutHeight {
	return errorsmod.Wrapf(
	sdkerrors.ErrTxTimeoutHeight, "block height: %d, timeout height: %d", headerInfo.Height, timeoutHeight,
	)
	}
	return nil
	}

, we would make this work with time as well.