Sprint 121 in progress
Main Focus is to prepare the leaderless block merge Hard fork (hf2), specifically (a) complete the finalization feature for multi-parent block merge for release to Test net (b) a lot of testing + bug fixing and (c) performance improvements (d) Completed - Adding shardId inside the signatures, to enable multi-shard operation and prevent reusing of deploys from one shard in another shard (e) sdk project to make the code more modular and serve as a base for RNode domain logic with corresponding data types (f) Prepare for trusted external validators in order to decentralize the network.
Other work includes resolving any identified bugs, hardening the network and working with external customers.
The team is making good progress towards the 0.13.Beta1 release code for finalization and Block merge (LLBM) with simple protocol (i.e. potential network partitioning ignored). Nutzipper has the code in for attestation blocks. He is fixing the logic bugs and refactoring needed for this to work correctly along with Tomislav. Additional tests need to be written once the code is working bug free. Once Nutzipper completes this task, we should be able to release the 0.13.Beta1 version to the test net.
Tomislav has started to look into the design of handling invalid blocks. This will not be released in the 0.13.Beta1 version but is a significant part of the effort for the next version, which we expect will be the release candidate for LLBM on the testnet. If everything goes well with the release candidate version, we should be able to promote that to the main net.
Isaac is reviewing and fixing as needed, Will's PRs related to Proof of Stake contract.
The dev team and a few community volunteers (Thank you, Raphael) have started a documentation project to document the steps/process, code fragments, business contracts and other items needed for easy onboarding of external validators. Eventually, this will cover much of the documentation for the project for various stakeholders that want to engage with the project, besides validators. We invite all knowledgeable folks from the community to participate in this effort to make it as high quality and broadly usable as possible. The team is coordinating via github, gdocs and also a zoom meeting starting around 12 Noon Eastern on Mondays ( immediately after the dev standup on Mondays).
Once the 0.13.Beta1 is on the test net, we will perform some performance testing and also enhance error reporting and error handling. The team had a robust discussion on Thread Mapping and the roadblocks to full realization of concurrence post LLBM. We discussed writing our own thread management package consistent with how Rholang operates to supplement the libraries we are currently using. No final decisions are made in this area yet. We will be guided by what the performance tests tell us to decide on the most productive course of action.
Stas is on vacation this week.
Denis and Nutzipper are making good progress on the external customer project.
Everything you can do on Ethereum and more, you could do on RChain for more than a year. Please build your awesome apps on the main net so that the full functionality and capacity of the network can be used.
Current closed list of PRs is at https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pulls?q=is%3Apr+sort%3Aupdated-desc+is%3Aclosed Current full PR list is at https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pulls?q=is%3Apr+sort%3Aupdated-desc+is%3Aopen . Project progress is at https://github.com/rchain/rchain/projects/4 Latest updates to the issues list are at https://github.com/rchain/rchain/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+sort%3Aupdated-desc
External validator engagement as well as customer/market engagement continues.
Development Plans for the rest of the year and beyond - for reference
Near term plans and releases are as below:
Note:
/api/status
to get min phlo price accepted by the validator and put that value in deploy data instead of the currently used constant 1
.Tomislav has updated the wiki at https://github.com/rchain/rchain/wiki/Cost-accounting-in-RChain#phloprice We will start communications with exchanges also for HF2.Explanation of the different Hard Forks (for reference)
Proceeding further with block merge requires changes to the per validator vault to make it a per deploy vault/purse etc. We are currently finalizing the design for this. Actual code and test will take some time. We are potentially looking at this scenario:
1. First hard fork for balances and removing the slashed validator
2. Second hard fork for block merge - This is the fastest way to get block merge on the main net without holding it until the third hard fork. This includes REV balance merging (aka per deploy vault), attestation messages and the Tree depth being increased to four.
3. Third hard fork with all other changes. Third hard fork includes implementation of a lot of changes including the PoS contract changes, Soft fork process etc. Design for soft fork process is complete and is being reviewed by the team.
(Hard Fork) TEST NET 2 ADVISORY: (for reference)
To test the version of block merge with data changes that need a hard fork, we are creating a separate feature branch and a TEST NET 2 as the testbed for this feature branch. This content will be left here until we are close to Hard Fork 2 implementation on the main net. TestNet 2 is now available for the community to test their contracts on.
On all the hard forks on the main net, we will be starting from an empty state, with REV balances only. On Test Net 2, this 'loosing the state' will be repeated multiple times.
Tech-Governance meetings on Fridays 9:30 AM Eastern, 6:30 Am Pacific
Mercury requirements and acceptance criteria
Details on the acceptance criteria: Mercury acceptance criteria
Please see the documentation at https://github.com/rchain/rchain/blob/dev/docs/features.md.
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