How Do “Heartbeat” Mechanisms Ensure the Freshness of an Oracle’s Price Data?

A heartbeat mechanism is a time-based update trigger. It mandates that the oracle must update its price feed at least once within a set time interval (e.g. every 1 hour), regardless of whether the price has crossed the deviation threshold.

This prevents the price from becoming excessively stale during periods of low volatility, ensuring a minimum level of price freshness for all consuming protocols.