Weekly Development Report: August 18th, 2023

Author: Olga Hryniuk

CORE TECHNOLOGY

This week, the performance and tracing team finalized benchmarking node v.8.2.0. They also optimized the new tracing system and are currently working on documenting the tracing configuration. 

Finally, they improved the Nomad backend to take advantage of the added flexibility of the new hardware cluster.

As always, see this technical development report for more details from different teams.

WALLETS AND SERVICES

This week, the Lace team worked on polishing and bug fixing of the multi-delegation beta version. They also continued working on the serialization library in cardano-js-sdk to replace the CML library, collateral setting, and transitioned to the new, faster package management. 

Finally, they fixed some issues to allow the ledger and DApps to work with Lace and made UI updates for switching networks in the wallet.

SMART CONTRACTS

The Plutus team worked on rewriting the Marconi indexers using a new simplified API, writing integration tests for marconi-sidechain, and updating the cardano-api version in plutus-apps.

This week, the Marlowe team added a tool to auto generate documentation from the TS code on GitHub, provided some ad hoc support to CNC for running raffle using Marlowe, ran safety checks report failures for timed-out transactions, and fixed execution cost analysis of Merkleized contracts. The team also worked on adding the initial version of workspaces, documented a URL encoding requirement for contract IDs, and ran the Future contract on-chain.

Finally, they worked on modifying the Docker Compose workflow. 

BASHO (SCALING)

This week, the Hydra team updated the Hydra node to support Cardano node v.8.1.2, ensuring compatibility with the latest mainnet release. The team also participated in discussions about a ‘cardanonical’ JSON schema and added it as a submodule to the project, which contributes to improved data modeling and interoperability.

In terms of community engagement, the team onboarded a new contributor, participated in a RareEvo Twitter space, and continued preparations for the Hydra master class.

This week, the Mithril team created an explorer page with the registered signers to give recognition to the SPOs already running on mainnet. The team also focused on error refactoring to be standardized with the Automatic Deployment Rule (ADR).

VOLTAIRE

This week in Voltaire, participatory governance advances with the launch of the first iteration of SanchoNet, an evolving technical testbed for CIP-1694’s on-chain governance actions. It is a new playground for the Cardano community to experience CIP-1694 in a controlled testnet environment. New governance roles, such as future delegate representatives (DReps), will be available to the community to experience and weigh in on the advancement of participatory governance. Visit SanchoNet to learn more and join the conversation on Discord.

Intersect is a key institution for the ecosystem that brings together companies, developers, individuals, and other ecosystem participants to shape and drive the future development of Cardano. As such, it will be an administrator of processes that govern the continued roadmap and development of the Cardano platform and protocol. Join Intersect today as a founding member to receive an exclusive newsletter with a first look at the latest highlights. Additionally, a CIP-1694 Digest launched on the news tab of Intersect to provide vital technical information across all things Voltaire.           

CATALYST

This week in Project Catalyst, the level 2 community review stage came to a close. There was an impressive amount of participation in the community review stage with a total of 841 participating reviewers and 200 eligible moderators. It was a pleasure to have Steven Johnson and Mike McNulty in the after town hall this week to discuss the ‘Catalyst Ecosystem Accelerator’ proposal alongside the community. During the town hall, the team showed off a few videos of the recently closed projects, and you can find the recording here. If you haven’t already, make sure to register your attendance for the upcoming town hall.

On the Catalyst technical side, the team:

• Finalized testing of the mobile app, incorporating adjustments for fund operations, community reviews, and voting user experience. 

• Addressed issues with the snapshot importer on testnet.

• Fixed the Catalyst toolbox to accurately manage reward addresses.

• Deployed the Project Catalyst snapshot module for community use.

• Updated the supported wallets’ GitBook with new versions to improve usability.

• Progressed in integrating snapshot data with an auto-deployment and orchestration framework for ongoing voting events.

• Incorporated metrics to be logged during the execution of the IdeaScale importer.

• Updated the IdeaScale importer to capture the necessary fields required by new features in the voting app.

• Worked on the implementation of Fund10 changes to vitss in cat-data-service.

• Introduced the continuous testnet and shared the announcement with the community, including the GVC.

• Completed another load test on the voting node, resolving an issue with the tallying process.

• Conducted an investigation into fragment specifications to explore the potential creation of a reference ‘vote signer,’ aimed at enhancing testing capabilities.

• Implemented data input validations to ensure compatibility with the event database.

Finally, to stay up to date with everything happening in Project Catalyst, join the Catalyst Telegram announcement channel. 

For more information please visit essential cardano!