PacSpace Docs

Deltas & Flush Cadence

What a delta represents, how often to record one, and how recording granularity becomes a product lever you control.

A delta is one recorded unit of usage change for a customer. You decide what a delta represents and how often you record one. PacSpace records each delta, verifies it independently, and makes the proof checkable by both sides.

For the request and response shape, see the Emit reference.

What A Delta Represents

A delta captures a change in a customer's balance over some window of usage:

  • A negative delta records a decrease (for example, -50 compute-minutes).
  • A positive delta records an increase, such as a credit or adjustment.
  • Each delta carries a reason, an optional referenceId for correlation, and optional metadata.

You choose the unit. A delta can represent a group of events or a full day of aggregated usage. The amount is yours to define - PacSpace records and independently verifies each delta you submit.

The Default: One Flush Per 24 Hours

The default cadence is one flush per customer every 24 hours. You aggregate the customer's usage over the day in your own system, then emit a single delta for that window.

Daily flushing fits most billing models:

  • Invoices close on daily or monthly boundaries, not per-second ones.
  • One delta per customer per day keeps your record clean and easy to reconcile.
  • It maps naturally to the period you derive and checkpoint at invoice time.

Use stable, date-scoped reference IDs (for example, usage:cust_acme:2026-02-01) so a day's flush is idempotent and easy to trace.

Recording At Higher Granularity

When daily resolution isn't enough, record more often. You can flush hourly or in smaller groups - and you can set that resolution independently for each customer.

Higher granularity is useful when:

  • A customer wants closer-to-real-time usage visibility.
  • You surface live dashboards or alerts between invoices.
  • A high-value account needs finer-grained reconciliation.

Nothing about the API changes. You simply emit deltas more frequently.

Verification Is The Same At Any Cadence

Granularity changes resolution, not trust. Every delta is independently verified the same way, whether you record once a day or several times an hour. Derivation, proofs, checkpoints, and Shared Records all behave identically regardless of how often you flush.

That means you can increase granularity for a customer without changing how either side verifies the record.

Granularity As A Product Lever

Because recording resolution is something you control per customer, higher-resolution, closer-to-real-time recordation is a feature you can package and price. Many vendors keep daily flushing on standard plans and offer finer granularity as a premium tier - the verification is identical, so the upgrade adds resolution your customers can see and trust.

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