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Plutus Core Team Update

· 2 min read
Ziyang Liu
Ziyang Liu
Software Engineering Lead

High level summary​

The Plutus team recently published a blog blog post about the improved uplc command-line tool.

Among other things, the tool can optimize Plutus scripts. Experiments on recent mainnet scripts indicate execution-cost savings of more than 10% on average. So, if you are not already using it, it is worth checking what you may be leaving on the table.

Feedback, bug reports, and ideas for further improvements are very welcome. Please share them by opening issues in the Plutus repository on GitHub.

Further improvements to UPLC optimization have been made in recent weeks and are now integrated into the uplc tool. These include a new --inline-unconditional-growth flag for tuning the aggressiveness of the inliner, Agda certifiers for several optimization passes, a new UPLC constant-folding pass, and a pass that hoists polymorphic builtins to reduce the use of force. Common subexpression elimination (CSE) has also been improved.

Low level summary​

Key Pull Requests Merged​

Network Team Update

· 6 min read
Marcin Szamotulski
Marcin Szamotulski
Network Team Lead

Overview of sprints 110, 111, 112 and 113.​

Summary​

Leios​

The mux egress prioritisation issue was resolved, delivering static priority-based scheduling for mini-protocols. Work on weighted fair queueing with token bucket support was concluded: it allows bursty protocols to send multiple SDUs back-to-back without starving other mini-protocols. However, right now we don't have evidence that the additional complexity is really needed to achive better performance. A TxSubmission V2 demo is being merged, and an alternative design without a central decision thread is being explored.

Ouroboros-Network​

Tx-submission v2 now returns results from submitTxToMempool, a prerequisite for DMQ-Node integration. The long-standing ChurnMode refactoring was merged, together with a property-based tx integrity test for cardano-diffusion. Nodes now warn about misconfigured local socket permissions (an issue identified by Claude LLM). A fix for initial syncing targets is under review, which will reduce load on bootstrap relays during node startup by setting lower active-peer targets before the first churn cycle.

DMQ-Node​

Versions 0.3.0.0 and 0.4.0.0 were released. The 0.4.0.0 release includes trace-dispatcher integration, Prometheus metrics, and CLI improvements. Work is ongoing on an announciness metric for peer selection — scoring peers by how often they are first to announce a valid signature — and on connecting the DMQ kernel to cardano-node.

Leios​

PR / IssueStatusSprint
TxSubmissionV2 demoin review112
tx-submission v2: undecisionin progress112
network-mux: weighted fair queueing and token bucket for burst supportin progress111
Mux: single peer performance for Leiosin progress110
Mux egress prioritisationresolved110

Ouroboros-Network​

PR / IssueStatusSprintNotes
tx-submission v2: return results in submitTxToMempoolmerged113
drop support for x86_64-darwinmerged113contribution by dermetfan
Local socket access right warningsmerged113
connection-manager: added a commentmerged113
Clarify LedgerPeersConsensusInterfacein review113
Fix initial syncing targetsin review113
Various small changesin review113
cardano-diffusion: tx integrity testmerged112
ChurnMode refactoredmerged112
Code refactoring (burst engine)merged112related to WFQ
Removed AcquireConnectionErrormerged111
Updated documentationmerged111
new tracing: fixed Stateful.TraceRecvMsgmerged110
LocalRootPeers - ToJSON instancemerged110
Fixed peerselection test failuremerged110
cardano ping implemented with ouroboros-networkblocked110

DMQ-Node​

PR / IssueStatusSprint
announciness metric for peer selectionin progress113
node kernel cleanupin progress113
Prometheus prefixmerged111
Prometheus counters prefixmerged111
CLI improvementsmerged111
dmq-node-0.4.0.0merged111
trace-dispatcher integrationmerged110
dmq-node-0.3.0.0 releasemerged110

IOSim​

PR / IssueStatusSprint
Remove withLiftSTmerged112
io-classes-1.10.1.0merged112
Add IOSimPOR QuickCheck monadic combinatorsmerged110

Typed Protocols​

PR / IssueStatusSprint
support io-classes-1.10merged112

Contra Tracer​

PR / IssueStatusSprint
Contra.Tracer extra APIsmerged110

SRE Team Update

· 4 min read
John Lotoski
John Lotoski
Service Reliability Engineer

High level summary​

The SRE team continues work on Cardano environment improvements and general maintenance.

Some notable recent changes, updates or improvements include:

  • Cardano-node 11.0.1 was released which supports the PV11 hard fork!

  • Preview network was upgraded to node 11.0.1 in preparation for the PV11 van Rossem hard fork.

  • A van Rossem PV11 cost model governance vote was cast on preprod.

  • A Leios testnet was stood up in cardano-playground with block producers, relays, dbsync, faucet, and custom alloy-based monitoring.

  • Cardano-parts and cardano-playground were updated with cardano-node 10.7.1, cardano-db-sync 13.7.0.4, mithril 2617.0, Linux kernel 6.18 with ZFS 2.4 for LSM compatibility, and EC2 metadata hardened to require IMDSv2.

  • x86_64-darwin support was dropped from a number of repos ahead of the planned nixpkgs deprecation.

Repository Work -- Merged​

Cardano-haskell-packages​

cardano-haskell-packages PR#1363:

  • Adds cardano-node-11.0.1 to CHaP

Cardano-monitoring​

cardano-monitoring PR#7:

  • Adds a sandbox monitoring server with explicit OAuth allow list
  • Bumps org tags on resources
  • Sets http_tokens to required on EC2 resources for IMDSv2 enforcement

Cardano-node​

cardano-node PR#6541:

  • Prepares cardano-node for PV11 as the default protocol version and the experimental hard fork gated to PV12; SRE contributed CI and iohkNix updates

cardano-node PR#6555:

  • Bumps iohkNix for the blst flake input narHash and lastModified update
  • Sets cardano-node cabal version to 11.0.1

Cardano-mainnet​

cardano-mainnet PR#44:

  • Resizes most root EBS volumes from 300 GB to 600 GB across all boot, bscale, iog, and iogp machine groups to accommodate chain growth
  • Hardens EC2 metadata to require IMDSv2
  • Updates kernel to 6.18 with ZFS 2.4 overlay for LSM compatibility
  • See the PR description for additional details

Cardano-parts​

cardano-parts PR#82:

  • Bumps cardano-node to 10.7.1, cardano-cli to 10.16.0.0, cardano-db-sync to 13.7.0.4, and mithril to 2617.0
  • Sets the default Linux kernel to 6.18 for cardano-node >= 10.7.0 LSM compatibility and updates ZFS to 2.4
  • Fixes the ZFS ARC max null check in the AMI module
  • Hardens EC2 metadata to require IMDSv2 (http_tokens = "required")
  • Adds extraJournalReceivers option to the Grafana Alloy nixosModule for additional Loki journal forwarding targets
  • Adds NODE_CONFIG_SKIP_COPY env var and CARDANO_NODE_SHELL_BIN support to the entrypoint
  • Adds leios environment support to the Justfile with start-node, stop-all, query-tip recipes
  • Adds nix-copy-to-machine and nix-store-pin recipes
  • Adds cardano-node binary override support via flakeModules/pkgs.nix
  • Fixes IPv6 AAAA DNS record creation to be conditional on VPC IPv6 availability
  • See the PR description for additional details

Cardano-playground​

cardano-playground PR#57:

  • Adds Leios testnet environment with block producers, relays, dbsync, faucet, and custom alloy-based monitoring filtering for Leios-specific trace namespaces
  • Adds nushell scripts for pool delegation management, UTxO defragmentation, and bulk fund transfers
  • Adds low-threshold guardrails plutus script for playground governance testing
  • Converts mainnet1-rel-a-2 from LMDB to LSM storage backend
  • Consolidates dijkstra relay fleet by removing redundant relay nodes
  • Hardens EC2 metadata to require IMDSv2
  • Updates kernel to 6.18 with ZFS 2.4 overlay for LSM compatibility
  • Updates cardano-book for 10.7.1 release and pre-release configurations
  • See the PR description for additional details

Cardano-sandbox​

cardano-sandbox:

  • Creates a new environment for testing major stack re-factors, migrations and other complex test difficult or risky to execute on other live environments.

Iohk-nix​

iohk-nix PR#612:

  • Updates useLedgerAfterSlot values and peer-snapshot.json files for node 11.0.0

iohk-nix PR#613:

  • Sets ExperimentalHardFork to false for node 11.0.0 on networks not yet forked to PV11, ensuring compatibility with older node versions

iohk-nix PR#614:

  • Fixes blst flake input with correct lastModified and narHash and sets libblst to explicit version 0.3.15
  • Adds GHA validate flake lock CI for push and PR to catch flake input regressions

Repository Work In Progress -- PRs and Branches​

Hydra Team Update

· 2 min read
Noon van der Silk
Noon van der Silk
Software Engineering Lead

What did the team achieve?​

  • Continued progress on partial fanout, including KZG trusted setup with G1 accumulator commitments #2582, #2324
  • Potential performance improvement: switched from list to Seq for faster benchmark runs at higher tx counts #2597
  • Fixed file-handle explosion ("Too many open files") by closing connections properly #2588
  • Upgraded mithril compatibility and added a fallback so nix develop works on aarch64-darwin #2596, #2598
  • Updated the pumba flake so it builds on modern mac hardware #2602

What's next?​

  • Continue work on partial fanout, set up a secure CRS and perform final code-review! #2573
  • Work on reducing disk usage #2601, #2600
  • Support the upcoming Dijkstra Era #2495
  • User-friendly hydra-node configuration via config file #2581
  • Accept PaymentExtendedKey (HD wallet keys) #2583

Mithril Team Update

· 3 min read
Jean-Philippe Raynaud
Jean-Philippe Raynaud
Mithril Tech Lead

High level overview​

This week, the Mithril team completed the data encoding and state transition tests for the recursive SNARK circuit prototype, as well as the detection of SNARK circuit modifications in the STM library. They continued work on implementing a SNARK-friendly protocol message, the trusted setup validation for the SNARK circuit in the STM library, the implementation of Schnorr signatures in the STM library, and the in-circuit verification tests for the recursive SNARK circuit prototype.

The team also continued work on robust support for unknown and in-progress signed entity types, as well as enforcement of the DMQ message ID format. They completed the ledger state snapshot conversion tests in end-to-end tests and added support for stable and unstable versions of the OpenAPI specification.

Finally, they accelerated SNARK circuit tests in CI, upgraded Node.js 20 GitHub Actions, and fixed flaky nightly tests and circuit golden tests.

Low level overview​

Features​

  • Completed the issue Add data encoding and state transition tests for recursive SNARK circuit prototype #3191
  • Completed the issue Detect SNARK circuit modifications in STM #3216
  • Worked on the issue Implement SNARK-friendly protocol message #3146
  • Worked on the issue Trusted setup validation for SNARK circuit in STM #2944
  • Worked on the issue Implement support for Schnorr signatures in STM #3136
  • Worked on the issue Add in-circuit verification tests for recursive SNARK circuit prototype #3192
  • Worked on the issue Enforcement of DMQ message id format #3251

Protocol maintenance​

  • Completed the issue Accelerate SNARK circuit tests in CI #3162
  • Completed the issue Upgrade Node.js 20 GitHub actions #3173
  • Completed the issue Nightly tests are flaky #3210
  • Completed the issue Test the ledger snapshot conversion in the e2e test #3213
  • Completed the issue Circuit golden tests are flaky in STM #3231
  • Completed the issue Client retrieves an artifact which is not of the expected type #3244
  • Completed the issue Support for stable/unstable versions of Open API #3211
  • Worked on the issue Robust support for unknown and in progress signed entity types #3172
  • Worked on the issue Update all GitHub runners to Ubuntu 24.04 #3246