[WITHDRAWN] Funding the Spellshape Developer Tooling

I have to admit, I was a bit puzzled by the Spellshape chain and saw it as unnecessary overhead, but given this type of feedback, it seems useful.

My biggest issue with this proposal as it stands is coordination & product refinement. If we can get that sorted, I would be hugely in favor of it.

Here are some points I’d love to see addressed via calls with key stakeholders maintaining these areas:

  • coordination & collaboration around the points @marbar mentioned above
  • better product compatibility with ICS offerings, particularly in regards to the challenges and areas @lexa has pointed out here. If you can alleviate pain points that consumer chains and validators will have in regards to running replicated security, this would be invaluable.

My humble ask is to please not bring this to a vote before the above are concretely addressed with relevant stakeholders.

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Thank you for your feedback.

The purpose of bringing a draft to forum is to optimize 1) coordination 2) product refinement w relevant stakeholders. Guidance from, and coordination of CLI development w SDK devs is a top priority – and we’re in touch to ensure our next version reflects inputs from stakeholder teams.

We take this phase of synthesizing inputs seriously. We will integrate valuable insights and perspectives expressed by contributors and community at large.
To this end, we’ll share a revised version here before the proposal goes on chain (and also allow for sufficient time for revised proposal to be reviewed).

While Spellshape CLI simplifies the development /extensibility of cosmos sdk chains, the logistics related to launching a new chain are (woefully) laden w inefficient comms and administratively complex processes.

To address what is largely a coordination issue, we designed Spellshape network commands to supoort the preparation and launch of sovereign Cosmos blockchains via interactions with the Spellshape Chain.

You can read more about the chain features via supporting docs provided at spellshape github org. Ive also pinned links to these documents in our telegram community chat t me/spellshape.

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As a developer, CLI was my entry point to Cosmos, and I do agree with @gjermundgaraba, without CLI it would have taken me a lot more time and effort to get started.

I support this proposal, CLI helps the community so I think the community pool is typically made to fund this kind of project.

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I am 100% on board with the Hub funding Spellshape, it is a fantastic intro to Cosmos chain development and with more work it could easily be the defacto standard for building ICS chains which directly benefit the hub. My only confusion is the Spellshape chain, I keep seeing that it will help other chains built with Spellshape launch but I really am struggling to see how? How does having another chain help builders with their own launch?

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Thank you for your support. Spellshape chain is indeed a chain that facilitates the launch of new chains with the overall launch process during the coordination, preparation and launch phases. One of the features of the chain is that it helps with the coordination process which is needed to launch a chain. The Spellshape chain stores the launch information used to generate the genesis file. The genesis file is what the chain coordinator and validators use to start the chain. When the new chain is ready to be launched, the genesis file is generated by calling a genesis generation algorithm that uses the launch information stored on the Spellshape chain.

If you would like to learn more or are curious on the technical side, we invite you to check out the details in the documentation (https://docs.spellshape.com/network/chain). We’ve also pinned it in our telegram community chat (Telegram: Contact @spellshape).

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Had a read through the docs, and as someone who has previously launched a Cosmos chain, the Spellshape chain seems like it adds complexity onto an existing process rather than streamlining it. I’m in agreement that the launching process needs documented and work to improve it but I’m not sold on this being the way. It feels like decentralizing for the point of decentralizing rather than using decentralization to solve a problem. Me, the party launching the chain, still needs to organize the validator set and adjust all the parameters, why is storing that data on chain and dealing with block times & tokens to make changes to my genesis any better than just editing a json file and distributing it?

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Hi @proto, it’s not a random anon team.

A group of randoms would not be able to coordinate support from Greg Osuri, Jake Hartnell or Provalidator (multisigs).
Multisigs for the proposed project have also been made github owners of the new org, and there’s broad support from long time eco contributors – and they’re members of the new org.

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A notable attainment of Ignite CLI (Spellshape team) was a large and diversified stack of validators on the board, that provided an effective proof of legitimacy and could supply the new projects with the following, and supportive to the shared JSON, validators. Potentially it’s a huge and untapped mechanic, to facilate the chain bootstraping and solve a pain points of initiall security building.

For any blockchain startup, validators play a key role in ensuring the robust
infrastructure. To date, the engagement and resource of validators has reached a level
where they are capable to provide solutions to a wide range of tasks that go beyond
network validation, and the proper use of these talents can be incredibly productive.
From this perspective, by creating a chain as a hub of validators (verifier) and developing this hub in various sub-directions, Spellshape can build an incredibly valuable and sought-after resource in the Cosmos.

I understand that validators are helpful to new projects, building a validator set can be a challenge. I strongly disagree that building a Spellshape chain will help with that process any more than a list of validators that would be willing to help out would. It feels like a chain for the sake of a chain with no real vision backing it. What you told me here is “the chain is a good thing because validators” without addressing any of the concerns I made in the post you’re responding to.

The UX of launching a chain gets simplified to the point where it requires only a few commands from a coordinator and a few commands from validators (see https://docs.spellshape.com/network/introduction). The CLI takes care of all the work of initializing a node and submitting a gentx. This is similar to the process of coordinating on Github.

Coordinating a launch on-chain, however, offers advantages that are hard to replicate using Github or a centralized solution. For example, incentivized testnets where you reward validators with vouchers representing the token of your future mainnet are possible with the Spellshape chain. Reward information is transferred from testnets back to Spellshape through IBC. What used to be very difficult to organize and nearly impossible to do in a decentralized fashion becomes rather easy with Spellshape.

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This really doesn’t need to happen on a blockchain. There’s no real problem you solve by having any of this happen in a decentralized manner. In the Builders Program we’re working with a huge amount of teams in various stages of development. This concern has never really been brought up. All of these issues are easy to solve off-chain.

I see many projects create a chain / token for the purpose of generating liquidity. Those often don’t find product market fit. Don’t let this tarnish the name of the otherwise super useful and desirable tool. If you do go ahead and launch a chain, I think it would be in your best interest to run it under a separate name imo.

Edit: that being said, at the Builders Program we help teams with these kind of decisions. Sometimes we even come out quite strong like my comment above, but often times this helps shape the product in a better direction. If you are in need of any help on this topic, I’d be happy to set up a call to discuss this further. We have a lot of experience working with teams and the exact pain points you’re describing. If that sounds useful at all to you, please feel free to reach out on Twitter or wherever.

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We are part of the builders program, and it is true that we haven’t told you this, but it is a real problem: My experience is that launching a network is a pain in the ass and takes so so much time I would rather spend on other things. It’s a ton of social coordination, technical coordination (getting genesis correctly seems to be a common area of issue we see as validators on other chains too) and knowhow. Add to that incentivized testnets, funding rounds and then distributing supply. It’s a ton of work.

I’m sure all of this could be done on a web2 like service too. Most things in Cosmos can technically be done on web2, just more centralized and requires a level of trust I would prefer to avoid if I can.

I can also easily imagine upgrades, which are not exactly easy to coordinate either, could be helped using a tool like this.

In my mind, solving what is essentially a coordination problem with a blockchain doesn’t seem outlandish.

There are validators out there that specialize in solving these problems for new chains. Which is good for them, but I would prefer a better solution that actually lets builders solve this themselves.

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What is the advantage of this being its chain, instead of a module, on say, the Cosmos Hub, which will already help bootstraping app chains with ICS.
If there is demands and the hub funds it, it should live IMO on the hub, otherwise the value does not go back to ATOM holder, but to whatever token distribution has been decided by the team.

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That is a legitimate question. I suppose it could be on the hub, and be even more connected to ICS that way. As with anything on the hub: how fast can it really develop there vs a separate appchain?
It’s maybe also a question of how much functionality we want on the hub vs separate consumer app chain.

Perhaps this, as well as token distribution, could be described in the prop more clearly how it can benefit the ATOM holders?

(Btw: I have no monetary interests in this prop (besides being a very minor ATOM holder), the chain or the team. I simply like the goals and vision and want to see it succeed)

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Appreciate you saying this! And I do recognize this being a difficult part of launching, but I still don’t really see how moving this on-chain v.s. web2 style solves a big problem. But then again, I’ve never been one to be in favor of decentralization just for the sake of decentralization. Only if it really solves a problem imo. Perhaps I’m not seeing the value-add here. I’d be happy for someone to change my mind.

But more so, I have doubts that there would be a sustainable economical model associated with this as part of a dedicated chain. I just don’t see the demand being significant enough and I fear token supply side would just crush the economics in the long term.

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Interesting project I support all the community for here developer to approve this Proposals.

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The Spellshape team is writing to inform the Cosmos hub community that we respectfully withdraw our proposal for the community’s consideration.

After careful evaluation and reflection, we believe that submitting more proposals for public works projects would detract from the urgent discussion and deliberation surrounding the lack of a standardized process for assessing public tools and services.

We wish to avoid producing another review and consideration event that generates more confusion and disagreement and one that bypasses fundamental conversations about how we decide which items to fund and the reasons why.

In the absence of a hub constitution, it is difficult to hold meaningful and informed discussions and agree on the necessary frameworks, rules, and procedures to facilitate the review process of proposals by the entire community.

Due to the absence of objective and well-defined evaluation criteria for proposals seeking community pool funding, consideration regarding such funding appears to be disorganized, inconsistent, and uneven in scope and concern. More simply, we do not want to add to or take away from this issue.

Therefore we choose to withdraw the proposal.

In addition to the above, the worst-kept secret of the Spellshape developer tooling proposal is that it’s an initiative of former members of the Ignite division at All in Bits.

Our ability to work on a community-owned and community-managed fork of (spellshape · GitHub) ignite/cli (GitHub - ignite/cli: Ignite CLI is the all-in-one platform to build, launch, and maintain any crypto application on a sovereign and secured blockchain) is riddled with friction caused by the abusive use of restrictive covenants. Such anti-competitive business practices have no place in the Cosmos innovation story (https://twitter.com/fadeev/status/1628689276870303748?s=20).

Since this proposal has been brought to the forum, our head of operations has also been the target of relentless trolling and intimidation attacks, including phone calls to her residence. We implore those who have participated in slanderous and intimidating activities to cease immediately. Please stop.

We strongly urge the community to use proper channels and refrain from engaging in personal attacks while discussing proposals. We must keep in mind that thoughtful and civil discourse is our aim, and it’s in our collective interest that these basic and best practices are adhered to in an effort to reduce the excessive toxicity of the hub governance system and culture. Let us prove that we are better than this.

In proving that we are better than this, we plead for support from All in Bits, Inc., and the Interchain Foundation. We need the founding leaders and their organizations to model tone and content, and request that your personal channels, your organizations’ channels, as well as your employees and their own channels, set an ongoing example of respectful dialogue for the social life of the Cosmos network.

Finally, the forum has been a valuable resource for exchanging communication and ideas. This period has sparked conversations with stakeholders, enhancing our understanding of the optimal tooling for Cosmos SDK developers — our primary developer-user segment.

In doing so, we now realize that rather than a fork of ignite/cli, what the developer ecosystem requires is a ground-up rewrite of the ignite/cli source code with an architectural direction that is more compatible with the IBC narrative for sovereign and consumer appchains.

We express sincere gratitude to the community for their considered assessment and are especially moved by the public voice of support from ecosystem stakeholders for our new endeavor.

Let’s continue to spell the shape of Cosmos together…rather than a statement of disbelief – the foregoing is a statement of belief we are not too broken as a community to fix this.

Yours,
Spellshape Team

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