CBIA - Augmenting Cardano Developer Portal with ecosystem compatibility & dependency visualizations for dev tools

[GENERAL] Name and Surname of Main Applicant

CBIA - Cardano Blockchain Infrastructure Alliance

[GENERAL] Email address of Main Applicant

contact@cbia.io

Additional Applicants

none

[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?

Yes

[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.” in this field.

Cardano Foundation: To discuss changes and collaborate in moderating PRs to the Developer Tools repository.

[GENERAL] Will your project outputs 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.” in this field.

Project will be fully open source

[METADATA] Category of Proposal

Dev Ecosystem Collaboration

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

This proposal is CBIA’s first official mission of contributing to the Cardano developer ecosystem. From our initial calls, we identified a need to foresee update issues by having better visibility of infrastructure components’ compatibility and interdependence in the Cardano ecosystem.

The Cardano Foundation Developer Portal already includes an extensive list of Cardano infrastructure components and other tools or dApps. https://developers.cardano.org/tools 

The proposed solution will enhance this list’s format with details about compatibility and interdependencies between the listed items.

This will be done through attributes, such as Protocol version compatibility, that will be recorded as a ‘Trait’ of each component.

The new data will enable projects to clearly see updates for the components they depend on, and identify which other components depend on themselves.

We will then use this data to construct explorable visualizations and a Trait matrix table to facilitate insights across tools and dApps.

We believe this solution will make the Cardano network’s tooling relationships more comprehensible, and contribute to making our ecosystem considerably more versatile.

IOG’s Cardano node, although important, is not the only root for all downstream updates. Some tools start depending on alternative implementations of protocol clients. Between CBIA members there is a Rust implementation [Tx.Pipe], a Go implementation [Blink Labs], and a TypeScript implementation [hLabs] in the making that we trust will contribute to diversifying the communities of developers contributing to Cardano, strengthening our network’s foundations.

Also, further downstream, this solution will enable dependency insight at an intermediate level of tools (e.g. data providers), identifying and documenting relevant ‘Traits’ at this level. More about Traits and data+viz mocks here.

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

Picking up right from the challenge brief, “make it easier to build and scale” is the main point of alignment. For by having a clear and declared view to the community of what each tool is reliant upon and compatible with will make it a lot easier to make decisions about upgrading your version of a tool, foreseeing in what downstream impacts you may incur, and facilitate bridging and communicating between project authors to align and support each other to propagate compatibility faster where it may bring value.

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

• Increased pageviews of the current tools page - We will articulate with CF to gather website statistics for the relevant pages
• Pageviews for the new data visualization pages
• Data completeness statistics - Track how data for the new fields has been completed over time (whether by the CBIA team or tool authors via PRs); 
• Projects adding their data - Track the amount/quality of PRs by tool authors
• Discussion and ideation contributions to further develop this solution - CBIA will open the discussion to the community to progress this initiative; Participation and interest will be measurable as a indicator of success and relevance;

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

CBIA will share the initiative and it’s outputs (detailed at the end of the [CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] proposal section) internally and externally to foster it’s adoption and data enrichment by tooling authors, namely through:

• CBIA outreach through our social media
• To CBIA Members, asking that they help disseminate awareness and raise adoption
• To our partners CF, IOG, Emurgo, for the same purpose

All work will be progressed as part of an existing open source Cardano Foundation repository.

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

CBIA is composed of several Infrastructure providers on Cardano with extensive experience in building complex solutions. From infrastructure tools and services, to smart contract tooling and complete SDKs for web3 development on Cardano. Namely:

• Tx.Pipe
• Blink Labs
• Maestro
• Dandelion / Gimbalabs
• Five Binaries
• MeshJS
• HarmonicLabs

CBIA members run and are the authors of many widely adopted tools for which we are aiming to document compatibility. Therefore, CBIA deeply understands how to document, articulate and present this data and information.

Also, we are in close contact and will rely on collaboration from the Cardano Foundation to collaborate in improving their Developer tooling website. Other partners and participants of CBIA are Emurgo and IOG.

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

• Goal: Establish a reference format and location for finding compatibility information amongst tooling authors and dependent projects
• Feasibility: The CF Dev Portal is already one of the most central points for a list of tools. Adding compatibility will enhance this status and utility.
• Goal: To add move value and utility to the Developer Portal in such a way that fosters community-driven contribution and engagement
• Feasibility: This goal will be facilitated by achieving the previous point and because apps have an incentive to use the latest components to generate the best value for their users and downstream tools.
• Goal: Build an intuitive and useful dataviz for dependencies and traits explorer
• CBIA will leverage their experience and skills in building solutions, plus existing visualization tools that are available and appropriate in the context of the CF’s website.

[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.

• Stage 1: Augment Cardano Developer Portal with more metadata - 3 months
• Gather feedback from different stakeholders.
• Reach consensus regarding the new schema of the json and include the pertinent documentation for tool authors.
• Implement the required changes to the Developer Portal web so that it supports the new schema while maintaining backward compatibility with the previous one.
• Reach out to tool authors requesting that they update their corresponding entries by submitting a PR.
• Stage 2: Dependency Graph visualization - 3 months
• Research for possible solutions (e.g. libraries) to transform the dependencies data into an explorable visual representation.
• Implementation of the solution.
• Continue to engage directly with tooling and dApp authors to enrich data
• Stage 3: Trait matrix/table - 1 months
• Research for possible solutions (e.g. libraries) or produce code to render the dependencies data as a Trait matrix/table.
• Implementation of the solution.
• Continue to engage directly with tooling and dApp authors to enrich data
• Stage 4: Results sharing and broader feedback - 1 month
• Testing, sharing for UAT, gather feedback and resulting adjustments
• Produce/revise project debrief documentation to be shared
• Publicly promote the platform, discuss and gather feedback from the ecosystem
• Enriching data; Data analysis to extract relevant information
• Discussions with the community on possible follow up projects

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

All deliverables will be published by CBIA in the CF Dev Portal repository itself. These will include:

• Stage 1:
• Obtain participation and input from a critical mass of tooling authors
• Agreement and documentation on data structures adopted
• Document the data update PR process - To facilitate sharing with tooling authors for reference
• Stage 2:
• Dataviz source code and documentation - To facilitate extending it and building on this project
• Stage 3:
• Trait matrix table code and documentation - To facilitate extending it and building on this project
• Stage 4:
• Document community feedback, access statistics, related PRs
• Documentation on relevant information extracted from the gathered data
• Share and discuss with the broader community

The main output of this proposal will be the dependency/compatibility insight permanently explorable in the CF portal as a result of the project.

We will also open source all code and support documentation involved, in a way to facilitate further building on this project.

Insights obtained from querying the resulting system, may be obtained and shared by anyone in the ecosystem.

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

Stage 1

• Project management and interaction with stakeholders
• 50 hrs x $50 = $2 500
• Data structures and Technical changes to Developer portal
• 40 hrs x $55 = $2 200

Stage 2

• Dependency Graph visualization research and implementation
• 100 hrs x $55 = $5 500

Stage 3

• Trait matrix/table research and implementation
• 30 hrs x $55 = $1 650

Stage 4

• Project management and interaction with ecosystem
• 45 hrs x $55 = $2 475

Total

• $14 325 at $0.30/ADA = 47 750 ADA

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

The value of having more visibility of interdependencies between Cardano tooling will come from the resulting better management and foresight of impacts, less or more controlled risk when community members are updating their tools, and ease of communication between the right tooling authors.

It will be the value in having developers and toolmakers updating their tools and using each other’s latest features in a more reliable way, to more rapidly deliver their own products.

The cost we request from Catalyst is strictly the needed to sponsor our time and costs, validating the project.

The services budget is according to or below standard rates for these professional services in Europe or the USA.

[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