Lace Anatomy: Tx Viewer and Builder by TxPipe

[GENERAL] Name and surname of main applicant

Federico Weill

[GENERAL] Are you delivering this project as an individual or as an entity (whether formally incorporated or not)

Entity (Incorporated)

[GENERAL] Co-proposers and additional applicants

Emmanuel Gunther

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

6

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

No

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem (200-character limit including spaces)

We’ll integrate a graphical tx viewer to the existing Lace Anatomy by TxPipe, allowing to display the transactions graphically. We’ll also implement a DSL for creating the CBOR.

[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] Please provide here more information on the open source status of your project outputs

Project will be fully open source.

License Apache 2.0

[SOLUTION] Please describe your proposed solution

Transactions are a key part of the Cardano blockchain. Tools like the cardano explorer or cardano scan display transactions textually, while cardano-cli and libraries like Lucid or frameworks like Hollow facilitate command-line or coding-based transaction building. Lace Anatomy web app is a first step to making easier reasoning about components of cardano transactions, showing a user-friendly text description of them. However, diagrams offer a straightforward approach to understanding transactions. By representing inputs, outputs, and tokens as arrows and boxes, transactions become more comprehensible. We propose to integrate a graphical tool to enable both transaction construction and visualization.

The steps we plan consist of:

• Complete the preliminary work we already did for drawing transactions reading a CBOR.
• Integrate the drawing component into current Lace Anatomy webapp.
• Design a DSL for specifying transactions by simple text instructions.
• Generate CBOR from a sentence of the designed DSL.
• Integrate the CBOR generator into Lace Anatomy.

In future steps out of this scope of work, we plan to include the ability to define transactions graphically by dragging and dropping visual elements.

[IMPACT] Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community

This proposal aims to aid end users and developers in building and comprehending Cardano applications. The unique paradigm of the Cardano blockchain poses challenges for adoption. A graphical tool for interacting with the eutxo-model can significantly alleviate this obstacle.

Given that we are proposing a product for blockchain users and developers, we consider the following metrics to measure our success:

• Traffic in the webapp.
• Interaction with users and developers in github issues, discord channels, etc.

This will be an open-source project, so outputs will be available for everyone:

• Public repository.
• Webapp deployed and publicly available.

[CAPABILITY & FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?

TxPipe is an active member of the Cardano ecosystem

TxPipe has been developing open-source tools for the Cardano ecosystem for over 2 years and we're committed to continue on this path. Evidence of our commitment can be found by evaluating the continuous activity of our public code repositories.

Experience developing in the Cardano ecosystem

TxPipe has helped developed several dApps, infrastructure components and tooling for the Cardano ecosystem. This experience allows us to evaluate the feasibility of the project and its potential benefit from a developer's perspective.

Succesful Catalyst proposals

We have successfully completed 2 prior Catalyst proposals and are going to close 3 more on the next month. This may serve as evidence that our team has the required capabilities to fulfill these type of projects.

Development process will be public and open-source

Both the output and the development process will be public and open-source. This approach provides an easy way for the Catalyst team and the Cardano community to evaluate the progress at each step of the process.

[PROJECT MILESTONES] What are the key milestones you need to achieve in order to complete your project successfully?

Milestone 1 (1 month): Completion of tx graphic viewer

Outputs : Implementation of an MVP for a webapp that is able to draw a transaction from a CBOR or a tx hash making the necessary queries to some blockchain indexer. At this moment a very rudimentary version is already implemented with basic functionality. 

Acceptance Criteria: The webapp can read a CBOR or a tx hash and display the diagram of a transaction with arrows for inputs and outputs, showing in a user-friendly way the main information: utxos’ value and datums, minted and burned tokens, tx fees, among others.

Evidence of Milestone Completion: The source code is publicly available in a repository. A video-demo will be recorded showing the main use cases.

Milestone 2 (1 month): Integration between Lace Anatomy and tx graphic viewer

Outputs: UX design for adapting the existing Lace Anatomy webpage adding the necessary sections to include the graphic view of transactions. 

Acceptance Criteria: The Lace Anatomy webpage includes the tx graphic viewer integrated into the UI. A user can read and learn about tx components, together with their graphical representation.

Evidence of Milestone Completion: The source code is publicly available in the laceanatomy open-source repository,. A video-demo will be recorder showing the main use cases.

Milestone 3 (1 month): Definition of a DSL for specifying transactions

Outputs: Definition of a DSL capable of specify a cardano transaction. Documentation describing precisely the language and boilerplate of the implementation of a parser. 

Acceptance Criteria: The DSL contains constructions for specifying a cardano transaction. 

Evidence of Milestone Completion: Document and boilerplate of language definition is included in Lace Anatomy repository.

Milestone 4 (1 month): CBOR generation from DSL

Outputs: Implementation of a parser/code-generator for reading a tx spec written in the DSL and producing a CBOR. 

Acceptance Criteria: A sentence in the DSL can be parsed and a CBOR is generated. 

Evidence of Milestone Completion: The implementation is included in the Lace Anatomy public repository. Video-demo showing use cases.

Final milestone (2 months): CBOR generation integration into Lace Anatomy webpage, deployment of webapp, final report

Outputs: UI design and integration of CBOR generator from the DSL into the Lace Anatomy webpage. Deployment of integrated version of Lace Anatomy webapp. Final report.

Acceptance Criteria: The Lace Anatomy webapp containing features for displaying tx graphics and building a tx from the designed DSL is publicly available.

Evidence of Milestone Completion: Video-demo showing the final version of webapp deployed and publicly available, and closure video

[RESOURCES] Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

Franco Luque - TxPipe: Cardano developer / Tech Lead

https://www.linkedin.com/in/franco-luque-2732555/

Nicolás Ludueña - TxPipe: Fullstack developer / Senior dev

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas-victorio-luduena/

Alejandro Gadea - TxPipe : Cardano and compilers developer / Tech Lead https://www.linkedin.com/in/ale-gadea-a4b65780/

Santiago Carmuega - TxPipe: Rust Developer / Tech Lead

https://www.linkedin.com/in/santiagocarmuega/

[BUDGET & COSTS] Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources

1.5 FTE dev x 5 months = ₳168,750

0.25 FTE project manager x 6 months = ₳11,250

0.5 FTE devops dev x 1 month = ₳10,000

0.5 FTE Tech writer x 2.5 meses = ₳ 9,375

Total = ₳ 199,375

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

The Cardano blockchain, in particular its UTxO model, has numerous advantages, one of which is its exceptional graphical capabilities. In fact, it is a common practice when studying the model to draw some transaction diagrams.

However, we believe that this drawing capability has yet to be fully exploited. For instance, for communicating requirements in a standard way, it is useful to draw transactions that specify the operations of a smart contract. Also, in the development phase, it is useful for quickly validating that the implemented transactions correspond to the specified drawings.

The bulk of the budget falls under the software development category. TxPipe has extensive experience in the field, allowing it to provide good value for money. The hourly rates are defined using fair market prices. The estimation for the level of effort takes into account all of the optimizations that our team is capable of providing after years of experience developing software solutions in the Cardano ecosystem.