Hardfork Initiation Submission Policy
This page shows the Hardfork Working Group's hardfork governance action submission policy
The hardfork working group maintains a policy reflecting the ecosystem criteria that is required before they recommend submitting a hardfork initiation governance action.
The first iteration of this policy was developed and then followed by the working group for submission of the Plomin hardfork action. The policy is maintained via the hf-wg-documentation/policies repository. We copy-paste the policy here for convenience.
To provide feedback on the policy you can
Email [email protected]
Raise an issue via Github/HF-WG-Documentation (or pull request - see how-to)
Request to join the working group by emailing your interest [email protected].
Mainnet Hardfork Initiation Governance Action Submission Criteria
Version: 0.2
This policy describes specific metrics which the hard fork working group (HFWG) considers before recommending submission of a Hard Fork Initiation governance action to Cardano mainnet.
This policy aims to apply to the most normal circumstances, special cases such as security upgrades may not necessarily apply.
Context
The hard fork working group can not decide if Cardano is ready to hard fork, this is up to the CC, SPOs and DReps.
The HFWG can decide when to recommend the submission of a hard fork initiation action - When do we think we are ready for SPOs and the CC to consider a hard fork?
The HFWG can recommend key indicators we would like to see met before a hard fork is ratified, these indicators can be forwarded to the voters for consideration.
The decision to recommend the submission of a hard fork action must be ratified by the Technical Steering Committee.
Submitting a hard fork initiation governance action does not guarantee the ratification and enactment of a hard fork.
Definitions
Full Release: A new release intended for use on Mainnet. Not a pre-release.
Hard Fork Ready: A state of tooling/infrastructure as indicated by the builder/maintainer.
Submission
Must see for submission
Full release of hard fork ready Cardano haskell node - released and available for at least one week.
The one week counter can be reset by breaking change releases.
Preview Testnet hard forked - 2 epochs (1 day epochs)
PreProd Testnet hard forked - no strict time limit.
Tooling readiness (full releases) - DB-Sync, cardano-wallet, Ogmios.
Engagement with all key stakeholders kicked-off - tooling, exchanges, wallets, dApps/DeFi, CC, DReps, SPOs.
Would like to see for submission
Preview Testnet hard forked - 3 epochs (1 day epochs)
PreProd Testnet hard forked - 2 epochs
Regular engagement with all key stakeholders - tooling, exchanges, wallets, dApps/DeFi, CC, DReps, SPOs.
Tooling Upgrades in-progress - all been reached out to and engaged:
Libraries - CSL, CML, JS-SDK, CTL, Mesh, lucid, Pallas, Aiken
Tools - Rosetta, GraphQL, CNTools, SPO scripts
High level tooling - Blockfrost, Maestro, Koios, Demeter
Indexers - Kupo, Oura, Scrolls, Carp
Governance - GovTool, DRep Campaign, tempo.vote
Block explorers - in-progress - Cexplorer, AdaStat, Cardanoscan
Exchange readiness - progress is shown, confirmation of tooling upgrades for the first few.
Wallet readiness - progress is shown.
DApp/DeFi readiness - progress is shown.
SPO readiness - progress is shown.
Would like to see for ratification
The idea for this section, is it matches the metrics tracked for Chang #1. These are in addition to the on-chain voting ratification requirements.
No major holidays or events - tech teams ready to respond and support to issues
Preview Testnet hard forked - 42 epochs (1 day epochs)
PreProd Testnet hard forked - 3 epochs
SPO readiness - 80% stake measure by pool tool.
Exchange readiness - 80% by liquidity.
DApp/Defi readiness - 80% of top 20 projects.
Tooling readiness - 80% of named tools.
Wallet readiness - 80% of top 15
Note: DApp and Defi readiness is subjective. Different upgrades will affect the ecosystem in entirely different ways. The HFWG looks for evidence that trusted and mature ecosystem builders, where a level of expertise and experience are evidenced, have upgraded. This demonstrates 'the art of the possible’, which contributes to understanding ecosystem impact and timeline required, and also builds confidence a good level of testing has been undertaken.
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