Open Source Automation

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

André Diamond

[GENERAL] Email address of main applicant

andruzkas@gmail.com

Additional applicants

Stephen Whitenstall, Treasury Guild

[GENERAL] Please specify how many months you expect your project to last (from 2-12 months)

8

[GENERAL] Please indicate if your proposal has been auto-translated into English from another language.

No

[GENERAL] Does your project have any dependencies on other organizations, technical or otherwise?

No

[GENERAL] If YES, please describe what the dependency is and why you believe it is essential for your project’s delivery. If NO, please write “No dependencies.” .

No dependencies

[GENERAL] Will your project’s output/s be fully open source?

Yes

[GENERAL] If NO, please describe which outputs are not going to be open source. If YES, please write “Project will be fully open source.”

Project will be fully open source

[METADATA] Category of proposal

Dev Ecosystem Collaboration

[METADATA] SDG rating

n/a

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

How we perceive the problem 

There are barriers to entry in efficiently managing open source projects. This includes a lack of use of open source tools that are needed to assist in milestone reporting, contributor resource allocation and project management. This lack of tools inhibits Open Source project development and growth.

Our solution 

The Fund 10 Open Source Automation proposal will address this problem by developing Open Source tooling including GitHub automation, a user interface and procedural documentation and guidance.

This will include - 

1 - The specification, development and implementation of an automation solution on GitHub.

The first part of the project will set up and develop API calls needed to access GitHub issues and data from a project board. This will include the installation of a JavaScript framework, writing the code for API calls, and processing the returned data.

2 - A user Interface / dashboard

The second part of the project will build a user interface in the form of a dashboard that will present the processed data collected from the API calls. This will provide insight on a project’s monthly performance and assist with resource allocation. In addition a prompt generator will be provided that can be fed into chatGPT to generate a report on milestones. 

3 - Procedural documentation and guidance.

The final part of the project will provide documentation and guidance on how the tool can be forked, so that it can be implemented by other users. This implementation will be made quite simple. To supplement the tool, documentary guidance will be provided on the use of GitHub project boards and issue tracking. 

4 - A flexible code template.

The code is a template that can be tweaked to fit the way your project operates. Collaboration will be made easier as resource allocation will be more straightforward. A clear view of status and progression will help with project management and provide contributors with relevant information.

Reasons for our approach

Automation of routine tasks in open source projects enhances their functionality and broadens their utility to a wider audience. We intend to target the overhead of project management tasks familiar to many Catalyst proposers and build tools to assist with milestone management and reporting. In addition our dashboard will assist with user accessibility and our documentation will advise on developer reuse.

Who we will engage

We will engage, support and provide resources to existing and new project teams and share our work widely with the community. Our focus will be on helping Open Source users in Catalyst with their projects. For example this project management solution will be used by the SingularityNet Archive workgroup, QADAO, Treasury Guild and Community Governance Oversight. 

How we will demonstrate or prove our impact 

We will demonstrate and prove the impact of our proposal by tracking the use of this resource, incorporating feedback and documenting lessons learnt on our GitHub project board.

[IMPACT] How does your proposed solution address the challenge and what benefits will this bring to the Cardano ecosystem?

This proposal addresses the F10: Developer Ecosystem - The Evolution Challenge by equipping and supporting users and developers with tools and working infrastructure to further evolve the developer ecosystem. We are creating a tool that will directly support Catalyst proposers and incentivise the use of open source. 

In particular we will fulfill the following Challenge directions -

• The maintenance of documentation using real world examples that are relevant to the Cardano ecosystem.
• The provision of support structures in collaboration with other community projects in the Cardano ecosystem.
• The creation of incentivization and collaborative structures using the resource allocation features of the project board and tool.
• The creation of dashboards for open source project management.
• The creation of template repos and project boards.
• Demonstrating and making use of the GitHub API.

We will bring the following benefits to the Cardano Ecosystem during and after the project completes

• Improve the effective delivery, growth and productivity of projects building on the Cardano ecosystem.
• Better Milestone reporting by Funded Projects in Catalyst using our tool.
• Easy Incentivised collaboration for projects in Catalyst using our tool
• Promoting Open Source to projects building in the Cardano ecosystem
• A continuation of Open Source Tooling that benefits projects building in Cardano

[IMPACT] How do you intend to measure the success of your project?

[Description] - We will effectively manage and measure the milestones of our project and our partner projects.

[Measurement] - By extracting data from the project boards and assessing how the tool is used we will demonstrate the impact on the productivity of our partner projects building on Cardano's ecosystem.

[Description] - In the short term, funded projects will do better reporting, this will benefit the Cardano ecosystem by promoting better monthly reports and successful projects. 

[Measurement] - This will be measured by the number of reports created with the help of this tool.

[Description] - In the long term the use of our community created tools will improve the effective delivery, growth and productivity of projects building on the Cardano ecosystem.

[Measurement] - This will be measured by how many projects use our tool and how this use has impacted their productivity.

[Description] - Projects will have an easier time allocating resources to their contributors. This will benefit the Cardano ecosystem by promoting collaboration.

[Measurement] - This will be measured by the number of successful resource allocations done using this tool.

[Description] - The wider success of our project will be measured by the performance and number of projects forking our repo and using this tool.

[Measurement] - This will be measured by the number of times the repo has been forked.

[Description] - This project will be completely transparent by having a public GitHub Project Board that has all the information on tasks being done and ADA being allocated to the tasks. This will benefit the Cardano ecosystem by promoting transparency for funded projects in Catalyst.

[Measurement] - This will be measured by the number of tasks being completed on the project board and the commits made in the repo every month.

[Description] - When the tool is ready, people will have access to project dashboards and useful monthly performance stats. This will give people insight on the monthly performance and growth of tne project using this tool. This can be a great tool to view the performance of a funded project in Catalyst building on Cardano.

[Measurement] - The number of people who access our project dashboards and use the performance stats.

[IMPACT] Please describe your plans to share the outputs and results of your project?

We plan to spread our project's outputs over discrete stages that run for 8 months. The detail of our milestones can be referenced in the Milestones section.

We will share our outputs with the aforementioned project teams (SingularityNet Archive Workgroup, QADAO, Treasury Guild and Community Governance Oversight) who can take advantage of efficiency opportunities.

We will share these dashboards with people we work with. (For example if we are in a call and someone shows interest in one of our projects, we can share this dashboard to show the progress of the project)

A successful completion of this proposal will support further research and development in streamlining project management of other community proposals. We expect to continue to develop further tools and enhancements that build upon this proposal.

Any future projects that we will work on will make use of this tool and hopefully other people in these other groups using the tool will also start using the tool in any other projects they are involved with. We will gather any feedback from them as well as look for improvements that can be made as we use this tool in the different projects.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability?

Our capability is spread between our lead developer, our project manager and treasury guild support.

Our team (outlined in the [RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] section below) has already delivered a treasury platform, has implemented several proposals successfully and worked in collaboration with a broad range of community projects. Our experience in managing projects and project payouts as well as building the tools for these tasks/projects has been our main focus for the last 2 years in Catalyst and other ecosystems.

Part of our team is a Treasury Guild with extensive experience in fund management, and disbursement. They are trusted with the management of funds for several projects, including the ones that will use these tools. Our project boards will feature the ADA amounts to be paid out for specific tasks. 

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] What are the main goals for the project and how will you validate if your approach is feasible?

The main goals for this project are

1) To enable the development of API calls to GitHub to facilitate project management and reporting. 

• Validated by the improvement in project management and reporting

2) Achieve this through a staged development process that encompasses environment setup, development, deployment, data extraction and analysis. 

• Validated by successful data extraction and analysis.

3) Develop, test and implement a User Interface.

• Validated by a successful easy to use dashboard

4) Ease reporting of milestones. We will focus on making it easier for our partner projects to manage and report on their milestones.

• Validated by using the tool to do milestone reporting.

5) Thoroughly document the whole process.

• Validated by completion of the documentation

6) Improve the efficiency of resource allocation for our partner projects.

• Validated by efficient and successful payouts.

7) Increase the productivity of our partner projects.

• Validated by looking at the project's monthly performance on the dashboard

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed breakdown of your project’s milestones and each of the main tasks or activities to reach the milestone plus the expected timeline for the delivery.

Milestone 1 - Preliminary work

Main task & Key Activities - Preliminary work. Planning, Administrative setup and purchase of software

Success or acceptance criteria - a successful setup

Proposed cost - 7200 ADA

Expected timeline - October 2023

Milestone 2 - Set-up infrastructure

Main task & Key Activities - Create repo, install framework, create GitHub API calls and deploy using Netlify

Success or acceptance criteria - Infrastructure setup, deployment and creation of API calls

Proposed cost - 12400 ADA

Expected timeline - November 2023

Milestone 3 - Process data

Main task & Key Activities - Process and structure GitHub issues and project board data

Success or acceptance criteria - Demonstration of availability of data

Proposed cost - 12400 ADA

Expected timeline - January 2024

Milestone 4 - User Interface Development

Main task & Key Activities - Design and build UI

Success or acceptance criteria - Demonstration of the UI

Proposed cost - 12400 ADA

Expected timeline - February 2024

Milestone 5 - Testing

Main task & Key Activities - Test performance and function. Make improvements

Success or acceptance criteria - Successful test case or reports

Proposed cost - 12400 ADA

Expected timeline - March 2024

Milestone 6 - Documentation

Main task & Key Activities - Create documentation on how to use this tool for your project

Success or acceptance criteria - Completed documentation

Proposed cost - 12000 ADA

Expected timeline - April 2024

Milestone 7 - Close Out

Main task & Key Activities - Write close out report

Success or acceptance criteria - The Close Out Report

Expected timeline - May 2024

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] Please describe the deliverables, outputs and intended outcomes of each milestone.

The result of this proposal's work will be a tool that captures and processes the data from your GitHub project board and issues. This tool will provide the user with information that can assist with payouts, monthly reporting and an overview of the project’s performance and status.

We will measure the milestones listed below on the dates specified. This will be measured using GitHub commits and we will make use of a project board and issues to track the progress. We will even use the tool itself to track progress closer to the end of the project.

In total we will deliver 7 milestones (including the close out report). These breakdown as follows -

Milestone 1 - Preliminary work - October 2023 - 7200 ADA

• Documentation - associated GitBook documentation & GitHub tracking.
• Deliverables - administrative setup and purchase of software
• Outputs - This milestone will deliver the preliminary administrative setup including GitHub project management configuration, GitBook preparation and purchase of software.

Milestone 2 - Set-up infrastructure - November 2023 - 12400 ADA

• Documentation - associated GitBook documentation & GitHub tracking.
• Deliverables - Creation of a GitHub Repository. The code framework will be installed, GitHub API calls will be created, and code deployed using Netlify.
• Outputs - This milestone will deliver the initial set-up of the project infrastructure.

Milestone 3 - Process data - January 2024- 12400 ADA

• Documentation - associated GitBook documentation & GitHub tracking.
• Deliverables - Process and structure GitHub issue and project board data.
• Outputs - This milestone will deliver the processing of data retrieved from GitHub API calls.

Milestone 4 - User Interface Development - February 2024 - 12400 ADA

• Documentation - associated GitBook documentation & GitHub tracking.
• Deliverables - Design and development of the user interface.
• Outputs - This milestone will deliver the design and development of the user interface.

Milestone 5 - Testing - March 2024 - 12400 ADA

• Documentation - associated GitBook documentation & GitHub tracking.
• Deliverables - Test cases of performance and subsequent improvements.
• Outputs - This milestone will deliver the testing and any subsequent improvements identified and fixed.

Milestone 6 - Documentation - April 2024 - 12000 ADA

• Documentation - associated GitBook documentation & GitHub tracking.
• Deliverables - documentation on how to use this tool for your project. 
• Outputs - This milestone will create the final documentation on how to use this tool for your project

Milestone 7 - Close Out - May 2024

• Documentation - associated GitBook documentation & GitHub tracking.
• Deliverables - Write a close out report.
• Outputs - This milestone will provide the final proposal close-out report.

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown of the proposed work and resources.

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Fixed Costs

Software Licenses & Services - 3200 ADA

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Human Resources

Development

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• 1) Technical design and development planning - 2000 ADA
• 2) Development framework setup, creation of API calls and deployment - 8000 ADA
• 3) Technical extraction and structuring of data - 8000 ADA
• 4) Design and development of the user interface - 8000 ADA
• 5) Testing of performance and subsequent improvements - 8000 ADA
• 6) Reference to development and technical setup - 4800 ADA
• 7) Write a close out report - 0 ADA

Development Sub Total - 38800 ADA

Project Management

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• Project management configuration and documentation - 14800 ADA

Treasury

-------------------------------------------------

• Treasury Service - 12000 ADA

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Total - 68800 ADA

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

These are self-employed rates that take into account the employment overheads of the resources contracted. The rates are based on the low end of US and European averages. The amounts are calculated for each milestone based on the hours to complete.

The average JavaScript developer hourly rate is $50/hr. In addition this tool needs to accommodate different kinds of projects, so the design process for each step needs to take that into consideration. [Source - JavaScript Developer Hourly Rate Guide | Flexiple]

A freelance Accountant can charge from $50/hr. Treasury Guild is charging $50/hr for wallet setup, admin and payments. [Source - Accountant Hourly Rates | Crowdsourced List (contractrates.fyi)]

A freelance project manager can charge from $50/hr. In addition management of this project requires knowledge of open source software tools and an awareness of blockchain technology. [Source - Project Management Fees | Hourly & Consulting Rates | Salaries – OCM Solution]

In addition all the resources working on this project are taking on the currency risk of being paid in ADA. This means that a fall in the ADA price will result in being paid less or delivering less in each milestone. Any rise in the ADA price will represent a reward for investing in the Cardano ecosystem.

Consequently, given these factors, we believe this proposal offers excellent value for money in a volatile cryptocurrency environment

[IMPORTANT NOTE] The Applicant agreed to Fund10 rules and also that data in the Submission Form and other data provided by the project team during the course of the project will be publicly available.

I Accept