{% docs start_slot %}

The first slot of the epoch. This field identifies the beginning slot number for the epoch, enabling epoch boundary tracking and time-based analysis.

**Data type:** INTEGER (slot number)
**Business context:** Used to track epoch boundaries, analyze time-based patterns, and provide epoch context for block production data.
**Analytics use cases:** Epoch boundary tracking, time-based analysis, and epoch context provision.
**Example:** 123456789, 123456800

{% enddocs %} 