Listen to new blocks

This example shows how to subscribe to new blocks.

It displays the block number every time a new block is seen by the node you are connected to.

NOTE: The example runs until you stop it with CTRL+C

// Import the API
const { ApiPromise } = require('@polkadot/api');

async function main () {
  // Here we don't pass the (optional) provider, connecting directly to the default
  // node/port, i.e. `ws://127.0.0.1:9944`. Await for the isReady promise to ensure
  // the API has connected to the node and completed the initialisation process
  const api = await ApiPromise.create();

  // We only display a couple, then unsubscribe
  let count = 0;

  // Subscribe to the new headers on-chain. The callback is fired when new headers
  // are found, the call itself returns a promise with a subscription that can be
  // used to unsubscribe from the newHead subscription
  const unsubscribe = await api.rpc.chain.subscribeNewHeads((header) => {
    console.log(`Chain is at block: #${header.number}`);

    if (++count === 256) {
      unsubscribe();
      process.exit(0);
    }
  });
}

main().catch(console.error);