Add API call to get first_block_available

[matthewdarwin]

/v1/chain/get_info tells you want is the last block available, but not the first block. Since nodeos can start from a snaphot and with 2.1 auto-remove old blocks, it would be nice to have a way to know which blocks are actually available.

Information could be added to the existing get_info API call.

[aclark-b1]

Hi @matthewdarwin - is there more context you can share about your use case? We want to make sure we're approaching this correctly.

[matthewdarwin]

Use case #1: The use case is that I was trying to sync blocks from a node for which the blocks were expired. So would like to create some sort of internal dashboard so I know how many blocks are available on which nodes. This requirement could also be fulfilled other ways.

Use case #2: From a public API endpoint point of view (eg validate.eosnation.io) it would be nice to know which is the first block available. Currently need to run multiple get_block queries to figure out which is the first block available.