1
System operationslistings · risk parameters · fee schedule · account creation · the block’s mark price
Everything downstream reasons about one price
2
Non-matching actionsfunds first · account configuration · post-only orders · liquidations
Money that improves an account’s health lands before anything evaluates that health
3
Cancellationsevery cancel in the block
A stale quote can be pulled and cannot be picked off by an order that arrived alongside the cancel
4
Orders that may take liquidityeverything aggressive, last
The sub-millisecond race inside a block does not exist
Executed in this order, on every node
What the placement buys
1 · System operations
Administrative and protocol-level changes: listing and delisting markets, risk parameter updates, fee schedule changes, account and sub-account creation, and the mark price update for the block. Mark price updating first is what lets everything downstream reason about one price. A liquidation check and an order placed in the same block see the same number.2 · Non-matching actions
Actions that change state without touching the book, in this internal order: Funds first — deposits, manual margin additions to isolated positions, and funding settlement. Money that improves an account’s health lands before anything evaluates that health. Account configuration — margin mode, position mode, leverage, and agent authorization changes. Post-only orders — the one order type processed here rather than in phase 4, because post-only cannot take liquidity by definition. Guaranteed makers are placed onto the book before anything can trade against them, in arrival order. Liquidations — cancel the affected account’s orders first, then re-check, then take over the position if still required. Takeovers execute directly at the bankruptcy price without entering the book.Liquidation running here — before any discretionary order — is why a liquidation cannot be front-run within a block. By the time phase 4 begins, the forced flow has already been resolved.
3 · Cancellations
User-initiated cancels, before any order that could take liquidity. This is the phase that matters most to anyone quoting. A cancel submitted in the same block as an aggressive order beats that order. If price moves and you cancel a stale quote, an order arriving alongside your cancel cannot pick it off. On most venues this is a race decided by who reaches the matching engine first, and it is won with latency. Here it is decided by the protocol, and the outcome is the same for everyone regardless of infrastructure.4 · Orders that may take liquidity
Everything that can cross the book: limit orders under any time-in-force, market orders, TWAP slices, non-post-only scale orders, and order modifications. Within this phase, processing is first-in-first-out.What reaches this phase
Processing here is first-in-first-out, and two things are worth naming about what arrives. Post-only orders never do. They are handled in phase 2 and cannot take liquidity. Conditional orders that trigger on-chain arrive in the same block. A stop or take-profit firing from this block’s mark price converts and enters matching here rather than in the next block. The trigger was decided by the protocol from committed state, not submitted by someone who could time it.What this changes
Latency stops mattering inside a block. Two orders in the same block have a defined precedence that every node computes identically. Between blocks arrival still matters, but the unit of competition is the block. Quoting is defensible. You can cancel a stale quote and win against an order that arrived at the same moment. That is a structural property, not an operational advantage bought with colocation. Forced flow resolves before discretionary flow. Liquidations and funding settle before anyone can trade around them.Where to go next
Order types
Which types can take liquidity and which cannot.
Modify orders
Why an in-place size decrease applies immediately.
Liquidations
The phase-2 sequence that resolves before matching.
IntentionKernel
Where this schedule sits in block execution.