Financial Proposal: EVMcrispr, mutating DAOs' DNA šŸ§¬

Branchy Syntax = legit!

1 Like

Hi everyone!

elessar here!

Sorry for the late release this month. It has been a hectic month and a lot of work has been done, but hopefully, the new features compensate for the delayed report.

August 2022 EOM Report - v.0.7.0 ā€œBranchy Syntaxā€

@daniel-ospina @lee0007 @fartunov

This version comprises a complete refactoring and restructuring of the library.

Embrace modularity . The evmcl command language (which is now called cas11 :nerd_face:) has been converted into a formal fully-fledged DSL (Domain-specific Language) comprise of composable and independent parser combinators that receive the raw cas11 script and produce the nodes (building blocks) of something called AST (Abstract Syntax Tree) which will be later on processed by an interpreter (the evmcrispr).

ASTs are pretty useful structures that facilitate the manipulation and processing of source code in a more consistent, non-ambiguous, and convenient manner.

The different commands and helpers have been moved to separated encapsulated modules following the separation of concerns principle. In this way, new web3 protocols can be supported and integrated more easily.

Deliverables

  • New switch <network name or id> command that allows you to dynamically switch the chain.

  • New load <module> [as <alias>] command that allows you to import the modules containing a set of commands and helpers. At the moment, there are two modules:

    • std: the core module which is not required to import. It contains the following:
      • Commands: load, exec and set and switch.
      • Helpers: @date, @get, @id, @ipfs, @me, @token and @token.balance.
    • aragonos: Aragon module that contains the following:
      • Commands: act, connect, forward, grant, install, new-dao, new-token, revoke and upgrade
      • Helpers: @aragonEns.

    When loading a module, you have access to all its commands and helpers by prefixing the module name. For example, to use the aragonos module youā€™d do the following:

      load aragonos as ar
      
      ar:connect 1hive token-manager voting (
      	install agent:new
      	grant voting token-manager ISSUE_ROLE voting
      )
    

    Note an alias (in this case ar ) has been set for the module.

  • New call operator <contractAddress>::<method>(<args>) to call read-only contract functions. Example:

     load aragonos as ar
    
     ar:connect myDAO (
     	set $var1 token-manager
     	exec token-manager::token() transfer(address,uint256) vault 2500e18
     	exec $var1::token() transfer(address,uint256) vault 2500e18
     	set $var2 @token(DAI)::decimals()
     )
    
    

    It also supports chainable calls. Hereā€™s an example:

      load aragonos as ar
    
      ar:connect myDAO (
      	set $var1 token-manager::token()::decimals()
      )
    
    

    At the moment it only supports calls to functions that return primitive data types.

  • @calc() helper has been deprecated in favor of native arithmetic expression operations that support priority parenthesis. Example: set $var1 (@token.balance(DAI, @me) * (5 - myContract::aMethodReturningNumber())).

  • Complete support of nested expression structures (e.g. arrays, block command expressions, call expressions, helper expressions, etc).

  • Support of nested connect commands that allow you to define DAO-to-DAO operations scripts and have access to different organizationsā€™ apps inside a scope.
    You can reference a different DAOā€™s app by their name, address or nesting index. The format would be as follow: _<dao>:<app-identifier>.
    Example:

    load aragonos as ar
    ar:connect mainDAO (
        ar:connect subDAO tollgate token-manager voting (
       		 # It grants mainDAO's voting app permissions to create votes in
       		 # subDAO's voting app.
       	 grant _mainDAO:voting voting CREATE_VOTES_ROLE 
       		 # Here the nesting index "_1" is the same as "_myDAO".
       	 grant _1:voting token-manager MINT_ROLE
        )
    )
    
    
  • The forward <...path> ( <...commands> ) command is back. It allows you to customize the forward path by not having to define it in the connect command. This can be helpful when creating scripts that will be sent through a forwarding path composed of apps from different DAOs. Example:

    load aragonos as ar
    ar:connect mainDAO (
       ar:connect committeeDAO (
       	forward _mainDAO:token-manager token-manager (
       		...
       	)
       )
    )
    
  • Option arguments can now be used in-between commands. Example my-command --anOpt 1e18 anotherArg --anotherOpt 1e18 anotherArg.

  • Improved error handling logic that displays the location (line and column number) and type of the failed expression along with the error message.

  • Parser combinators implement error recovering logic which allows them to scan the whole script looking for the maximum number of syntax errors.

Funding Request

  • USDC (90%): $15,000
  • ANT (10%): $1,667

We request a relation of 90% USDC / 10% ANT instead of 70% USDC / 30% ANT because of the Financial Guild Proposal to reduce the spending in ANT.

Next steps

We will keep working on integrating the new library into the EVMcrispr terminal and improving the code highlighting and auto-completion of the editor (which will be easier to do now thanks to ASTs).

Weā€™ll also keep polishing the library and fixing any possible edge case.

4 Likes

This brilliant project continues to have my 100% support for funding but ANT Holders are yet to commit to honouring legitimate funding allocations since S2 ESD funding was not approved. If you hold ANT I would highly recommend voting here Aragon Voice cc @sembrestels

1 Like

Thank you for yet another month of valuable contribution! Waiting for @gausmanā€™s sign off before approving monthly payment

1 Like

Very interesting, can you explain how this supports integration more easily?

This looks like great work! Thank you for such a technical update!

The current modules are two, std and aragonos. Future modules could be giveth, superfluid, uniswap, safeā€¦

A good example of the current structure of a module is std.

  • It has a main class that defines the name and loads the module helpers and commands.
  • Every module helper is defined in a different file within the helpers directory.
  • Every module command is also defined within a file, within the commands directory.

This structure is still in alpha, and is subject to heavy changes during the subsequent versions. Once we have a stable way to define modules, we will publish them on npm and apm, so other developers will be able to load their modules and define their custom commands and helpers.

The next module to integrate will probably be giveth.

3 Likes

Great stuff yā€™all, as always :slight_smile:

All checks out from NFTX :white_check_mark:

3 Likes

1/3 cc: @Ricktik6

@daniel-ospina @fartunov Believe we do not need to continue the previous process of ESD approval as the funding for this project is now approved by Main DAO as per this vote cc @Ricktik6

2 Likes

Although no approval is required anymore, would still be great if you could share the September progress report @PJColombo @sembrestels

As we are currently in the last month of funding for this initiative, it would be great to receive a final overview report by the end of this month.

You could use this format for the last report (October report) Notion ā€“ The all-in-one workspace for your notes, tasks, wikis, and databases.

1 Like

Hello everyone, the auto-completion feature (targeted for the end of September) took more time than we expected, and although huge progress has been made, we are going to delay its release to the end of October. We are also delaying the last release of this proposal (which includes simulations) to the end of November. This is why we are skipping Septemberā€™s monthly payment, so we will get paid when we release what we promised. Thanks for your understanding; the next version will help a lot with the user experience of EVMcrispr. We will tell you more about it in the following days.

6 Likes

Hi everyone! elessar here again!

This last version has taken a bit more time than expected. Weā€™ve been a little bit busy with ETHBogota, ETHLatam and Devcon this month. Weā€™ve had the opportunity to see old faces and meet some wonderful new people during these events as well as participating in the ETHGlobal hackathon where we ended up finalists :trophy: :confetti_ball: (you can check out the project here, if youā€™re interested :eyes:).

Anyway, we hope you like what this new version brings.

October 2022 EOM Report - v.0.8.0 ā€œModular Consigliereā€

v0.8.0, as its name may suggest, is a user-center version that seeks to improve the terminal UX by providing new auto-completion features which offers contextual code completion suggestions that take into account the previous commands that youā€™ve typed in as well as the current commandā€™s parameters to help you fill the next word.

Deliverables

  • Commands and helpers suggestions based on the current imported modules.
  • Method signature suggestions given a specific contract address.
  • Specific identifiers suggestions based on the command and argument position being filled.
  • Dynamic suggestions list that changes based on the previous commands.
  • Code highlighting: commands, helpers, keywords and literals
  • UI enhancements: wallet connection and error handling display.

v0_8_0

Next steps

Weā€™ll be working on the final version that offers transaction simulation features to to test the userā€™s scripts.

Weā€™ll also keep working on improving the auto-completion feature by fixing possible bugs and edge cases and adding support to a couple of missing commands.

6 Likes

We are about to release the last version funded by this financial proposal. We are very thankful for everything we could build, thanks to Aragon. In this final version, we are introducing the long-awaited simulations.

Simulations fork the blockchain from a certain point (present or past) and perform fictional operations to see if there are ā€œno glitches in the Matrixā€ (no bugs in your script) before it is performed for real.

As usual, we request the community for the codename of this next version. These are the options:

  • Morphean simulation - You will be able to simulate transactions and see if the outcome is what you expect.
  • Intrepid daydreamer - You will be able to time-travel to the future or the past to explore the state of the blockchain.
  • Endless construct - Your simulation, your rules, so you will be able to impersonate other addresses (including contracts) to make them do what you wish.

0 voters

We target November 26th for releasing it. Stay tuned.

2 Likes

November 2022 EOM Report

@daniel-ospina @lee0007 @fartunov

Deliverables

EVMcrispr v0.8.1

On November 17, we released a patch called EVMcrispr v0.8.1 with the following changes:

New Features:

  • You can attach a script to the URL, which will be preloaded in the terminal (example).
  • The raw command is reintroduced in this version.
  • New arithmetic operator for exponentiation (^) in mathematical calculations.
  • The Goerli network is now supported by the EVMcrispr and the aragonos module.
  • The exec command can now process payable functions.
  • Gas is estimated by the wallet by default now.
  • New print command.
  • New autocompletion suggestions for Aragon agents and tokens retrieved with the @token helper.

Fixes:

  • Fix line endings in Windows. The new parser could not process multiline scripts in Windows due to how it treats line endings.
  • Some numbers were not processed as BigNumbers, making some operations impossible.
  • Network changes were not considered when processing the subsequent commands and helpers, making some operations fail.
  • The call operator (::) can process view functions with an underscore in them (such as token-manager::MINT_ROLE())
  • Fixes in the set command and @get helper.

EVMcrispr v0.9.0

Today we release EVMcrispr v0.9.0, ā€œmorphean simualtionā€, with the following new features:

  • New sequential interpreter, which makes it easier to write scripts in which one operation depends on the result of a previous one.
  • New tenderly module that can be used to fork the blockchain from a certain point, simulate transactions (from any address), and advance time. It introduces the following commands:
    • fork: Used to execute all the commands within a simulated blockchain fork from a specific block number and a specific address.
    • wait: Used to advance time and blocks in the simulated blockchain.
    • expect: Used to specify an expected outcome or test case.
  • New for command used to repeat many operations with different parameters.

This is a nice example on how simulations can be used to simulate a vote in a DAO and checking that everything is correct after the execution (you can also see the counterpart in ethers.js):

load tenderly as sim
switch gnosis

set $tenderly <user>/<project>/<apiKey>
set $token.tokenlist https://tokens.honeyswap.org

set $gardenHolder 0x5b0F8D8f47E3fDF7eE1c337AbCA19dBba98524e6
set $gardenVoters [0x6120f29ccb5b1DDaa5a747235F257Ef6cB47970F, 0xc89000E12C600b12D6e61a535cD3fedd4ac1eeC4, 0xa328500Eab25698b8b146D195F35f5b26C93AAEe]

set $somebodyElse 0x02d9cc72Bc796D2128E58c04B6e50A4E101c0be1

set $multisig 0xe6a1b6B98dc978888b0c83DbA2D5fabcF5069312
set $commonPool 0x4ba7362F9189572CbB1216819a45aba0d0B2D1CB

sim:fork 24850000 (
  # Return funds to common pool and execute the vote #14

  exec @token(HNY) transfer(address,uint256) $commonPool @token.balance(HNY,$multisig) --from $multisig
  expect @token.balance(HNY,$commonPool) > 8000e18

  set $voteId 14
  set $executionScript 0x000000010b21081c6f8b1990f53fc76279cc41ba22d7afe200000084c35ac76d00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000009895b700000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001e8480000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000271000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000002c68af0bb140000
  set $voting 0xfbd0b2726070a9d6aff6d7216c9e9340eae68b2a

  for $gardenVoter of $gardenVoters (
    exec $voting vote(uint256,bool) $voteId true --from $gardenVoter
  )

  wait 30d 5s
  exec $voting executeVote(uint256,bytes) $voteId $executionScript


  # Check new conviction settings are correct

  set $conviction 0x0b21081c6f8b1990f53fc76279cc41ba22d7afe2

  expect $conviction::decay() == 9999799
  expect $conviction::maxRatio() == 2000000
  expect $conviction::weight() == 10000
  expect $conviction::minThresholdStakePercentage() == 200000000000000000
)

EVMcrispr documentation

With this deliverable we release a Cookbook with a series of ā€œpre-cookedā€ recipes:

We also revisited the rest of the articles, improving them substantially, and adding a new article explaining simulations.

Funding Request

  • USDC (90%): $15,000
  • ANT (10%): $1,665

We request a relation of 90% USDC / 10% ANT instead of 70% USDC / 30% ANT because of the Financial Guild Proposal to reduce the spending in ANT.

5 Likes

cc @Ricktik6

1 Like

Hey @sembrestels and team,

Thank you for the great work and effort the last 2 seasons.

Happy to share that your received the final payment of this proposal.

Looking forward to the delivery summary & the future collaboration!

2 Likes

Thank you Seb!

1 Like

EVMcrispr Project Final Report

Approved Funding

  • $60,000 for the release of 6 new versions.
  • $10,000 for creating the documentation portal.
  • $30,000 in ANT for retroactively funding the first three versions of EVMcrispr.
  • $6,000 in USDC for funding NFTX as an independent reviewer of the project.

Total: $100,000 (70% USDC and 30% ANT) + $6,000 for an independent review.

Final Expenditure

Due to a change of policy by the Financial Guild, we recieved 90% of the funds in USDC and a 10% in ANT:

  • $90,000 in USDC.
  • $10,000 in ANT.
  • $6,000 in USDC for the independent review.

Total: $100,000 (90% USDC and 10% ANT) + 6,000 for an independent review.

Original Deliverables

  • v0.4.x (May 2022):
    • Introduce environment variables.
    • Introduce @sender (finally called @me), @token and @token.balance helpers.
  • v0.5.x (June 2022):
    • Restructure EVMcrispr library API.
    • Introduce @params.oracle (finally called --oracle option), @id and @now (finally extended to @date) helpers.
  • v0.6.x (July 2022):
    • Retrieve external contracts ABI from external sources (i. e., etherscan).
    • Introduce @ipfs, @calc, and @get helpers.
  • v0.7.x (August 2022):
    • Allow multi-transaction sending scripts to create many votes in many different DAOs in just one script.
    • Allow automatic chain switching.
  • v0.8.x (September 2022 ā†’ October 2022):
    • Improve code highlighting and auto-completion in the EVMcrispr terminal. We are using the same editor as VS Code, which is highly configurable and will allow scripts to be written easier and faster.
  • v0.9.x (October 2022 ā†’ November 2022):
    • Simulate the EVM scripts and notify the user if it will succeed before sending it.
    • Introduce the log (finally called print) command that provides more information about the simulated changes (token balances, app parametersā€¦) during and after the execution of the script.
  • Documentation Portal

Additional Deliverables

  • Language formalization:
  • Extra commands:
    • new-token: creates a MiniMe token, and we can use it when installing a new token manager.
    • new-dao: creates an empty DAO. Once available in the graph, you can install as many apps as you want and grant them permissions within a connect command.
    • raw: allows sending a transaction to an address with a custom data field.
    • for: allows repeating a set of actions for each element of an array.
  • Extra helpers:
    • @aragonEns: helper to find the addresses pointed by subdomains of aragonpm.eth and aragonid.eth.
  • Better frontend:
    • We added support to Wallet Connect.
    • We added a new footer on the terminal website, with the text ā€œSponsored by Aragonā€ and the other organizations that support or previously supported us.
    • We use more modern technologies that make the website very fast: pnpm and vite.
    • We migrated the UI to use Chakra React components.
  • Improved security:
  • Other improvements:

Deliverables Not Executed

We executed all the deliverables, although two features are failing, and we would like to fix them in subsequent versions of EVMcrispr.

  • Retrieve external contracts ABI from external sources. - It stopped working in the most recent versions, and we will prioritize a fix for this in the next EVMcrispr release. In the meantime, you can use the @get helper to interact with external contracts.
  • Complete multi-chain support for AragonOS module. - The aragonos module depends on the AragonOS subgraph in each network, and for some of them, it is not available. We will include support for those networks as soon as the subgraphs are available. Current available networks are are Mainnet, Goerli, and Gnosis Chain.

Short reflection on S1 and S2

We are very thankful for the tremendous impulse Aragon gave to EVMcrispr from v0.3.8 to v0.9.0.

During this time, EVMcrispr has passed from being a helpful tool for performing DAO-ops to being a fully-fledged scripting language for performing operations on different protocols (Curve, Sushi, Superfluid, Gnosis Safe, etc.).

We will continue developing the language and add new modules, so EVMcrispr can be even more potent in the future and allow Aragon DAOs (both old and new) to perform incrementally more complex transactions encoded with a simple language.

2 Likes

Stoked to see the evolution and to have been able to support and learn about this project. Thank you for the transparency provided throughout and the work delivered, as proposed and above and beyond. I trust this team will continue to grow from strength to strength. :fire: Keep killin it :heart:

2 Likes

Great stuff as always! Love it :slight_smile:

1 Like