What IPNI is used for
IPNI refers to indexing and routing infrastructure that helps clients discover which providers advertise content.
HiDHT uses provider lookup endpoints as a practical discoverability signal rather than attempting to crawl the entire public DHT.
What IPNI does not prove
Provider discovery does not prove that a full file can be retrieved right now. It only indicates that routing systems have provider information for the CID.
Gateway checks and timing data are still needed to understand current retrieval behavior.