The Graph Core Devs Call #15

General Community Calls
3

CORE DEV The Graph's Core Devs Meeting
CORE DEV The Graph's Core Devs Meeting2000×600 38.2 KB

Summary

In The Graph’s Core Devs Call #15 we learn about the MIPs program, view demos on Graphcast, @Live Queries and Building Subgraphs for Tendermint chains and receive a development update on Substreams.

Topics Include:

  • Migration Infrastructure Providers Program Overview
  • Intro to Graphcast
  • @Live Queries w/ Dotan
  • Building Subgraphs for Tendermint Chains w/ Bartosz
  • Update on Substreams

Detailed notes regarding each topic with timestamps can be found below.

MIPs (Migration Infrastructure Providers) Program Overview (03:05)

Focus

The focus of the MIPs program is to bootstrap Indexers to support new chains on the decentralized network, allowing for multi-chain subgraphs to migrate.

Incentives

50M GRT for Indexers (0.5% GRT supply)

25M GRT for subgraph migration grants (0.25% GRT supply)

Breakdown for Distribution

Chain allocation will be defined mid-program. GRT will be allocated towards bootstrapping specific chains for the program.

Criteria for Performance

The core objectives of the program are to test network infrastructure, expand the decentralized network to new chains and support the migration of subgraphs. Indexers will participate in a gamified system of scoring and a leaderboard will be used to distribute awards at the end of each cycle. Points will be gained based on an Indexers participation in three core areas:

  • Subgraph Coverage
  • Quality of Service
  • Community Support

Chains

Each new chain will be announced with 2 weeks’ notice to allow for Indexers to prepare for the chain. Gnosis chain is the first chain announced to be part of the program.

Indexer Journey

Indexer Journey
Indexer Journey1000×300 425 KB

Lastly, check out The Graph’s official blog post covering the MIPs program.

Intro to Graphcast (11:20)

Graphcast | The Graph’s Gossip Nework

Petko, a team member at GraphOps, gave a presentation on Graphcast. Graphcast is a decentralized, distributed peer-to-peer communication tool that allows Indexers across the decentralized network to exchange information in real time. Graphcast is an optional off-chain layer, which allows Indexers to exchange P2P messages without paying extravagant gas costs. There is work being done to ensure message integrity and can be read more about in the GRC.

What does Graphcast unlock?

  • New forms of healthy communication among Indexers
  • Easier experience for tooling developers
  • Democratizing access to underlying data

Concerns

  • No strong guarantees of message integrity
  • Difficulties in testing Radios/ a network of radios would need to be deployed to test messages passed between them
  • Lack of multi-language support

Use Cases

  • Conducting auctions for warp syncing purposes
  • Self-reporting on query analytics
  • Self-reporting on Indexing analytics
  • Real-time cross checking of subgraph data integrity
  • AutoAgora cross-indexer signals/negotiations for improved automated query pricing

Tech Stack

Waku v2 protocol for decentralized messaging features (open to discussion for alternatives)

TypeScript SDK that abstracts over Waku, provides identity resolution which improves message integrity and exposes a rich interface for building Radios

The project is open Source and built publicy.

Next Steps

  • Collect feedback from Indexers
  • Publish Graphcast SD

@Live Queries (24:00)

Dotan Simha, of The Guild core development team, presented on their work to introduce @live queries into the GraphQL interface. @live queries allow dApp developers query real-time data from their subgraphs. A GIP was recently introduced on The Graph’s forum. View Dotan’s demo below!

Building Subgraphs for Tendermint Chains (32:13)

The Figment Core Development Team has been working on integrating the Cosmos Ecosystem with The Graph. Bartosz Pienkowski presented on how to build subgraphs for the Cosmos Ecosystem.

Substreams Development Update (42:05)

Substreams Core

  • Teams internally and externally are experimenting with Substreams.
  • In draft: helpers for simpler event extraction

Substreams in Subgraphs

GIP Published

Initial simple implementation in Graph Node

  • Imports a Substeams package
  • Persists the data in Postgres, queryable via the usual subgraph API

Continuing Discussion

  • Validating the Initial Graph Node Integration
    • Importing more complex Substreams
      • AMMs
  • Ensuring correctness during live operation, how does the system react when things fail or connection is lost
  • Testing determinism, do Substreams output the same data when utilized by alternate Indexers?
  • Performance benchmarking
  • Scalability benchmarking

Tooling to Builld and Deploy

  • Graph CLI will need an update for the Substream data source

  • Could take a more rust native approach via a Cargo plugin

Schema & Graph out Definition

  • The schema has information that isn’t relevant to substreams
  • Relationships between entities
  • Derived fields
  • Interfaces
  • The schema might only be a subset of output
  • Some entities might only be relevant internally

Getting Involved

Documentation can be found at substreams.streamingfast.io

Stay Tuned!

Join us next month for Core R&D call #16!

Keep up to date by joining discussions in the forum, following The Graph on Twitter or joining the Discord server.

Notes will be updated with YouTube video when available.