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· 2 min read
Jordan Millar

2025-02-15T00:00:00Z - 2025-02-28T00:00:00Z

High level summary​

  • cardano-cli updates

    • Added Plutus script cost calculation for existing transactions
    • Implemented property test watchdog for better testing
    • Bumped cardano-api dependency to 10.9.0.0
    • Set hex as default output format for binary query utxo
    • Began RIO monad integration (part 1)
    • Refactored module structure to be domain-oriented
    • Standardized on fourmolu for code formatting

  • cardano-api improvements

    • Added execution units check in transaction autobalancing tests
    • Included transaction creation examples in Haddock docs
    • Fixed governance action handling in transaction balancing
    • Enhanced witness count estimation to include simple scripts
    • Split compatible transaction building and signing logic
    • Migrated from cryptonite to crypton library
    • Standardized on fourmolu for code formatting
    • Updated CHaP index and flake inputs

  • cardano-testnet updates

    • Fixed testnet test configuration
    • Optimized testnet code by removing unused indirections
    • Removed unused custom node configuration file option
    • Updated transaction submission handling

cardano-cli​

cardano-api​

cardano-node​

cardano-testnet​

  • None

docs​

  • None

CI & project maintenance​

  • None

· 2 min read
John Lotoski

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 and cardano-cli pre-release (-ng) are now set to 10.2.1 and 10.4.0.0, respectively, in cardano-parts.

  • IoE Sanchonet environment and resources were retired.

  • Cardano-parts added module and template support for SRV DNS records which an upcoming version of cardano-node will utilize.

Repository Work -- Merged​

Capkgs:​

  • Adjusts the package fetchClosure path to avoid store re-writing
  • Adds some just recipe env checks
  • Updates the check recipe to work with package attrs with embedded "capkgs-pr-3

Cardano-parts​

  • Sets node pre-release (-ng) to 10.2.1, cardano-cli pre-release to 10.4.0.0 and mithril-cli to v2506.0. Cleans up deprecated environments such as private, shelley-qa and sanchonet. Includes a number of improvements with details available in the release notes: cardano-parts-release-v2025-02-26

Cardano-playground​

  • Sets node pre-release (-ng) to 10.2.1, cardano-cli pre-release to 10.4.0.0 and mithril-cli to v2506.0. Cleans up deprecated environments such as private, shelley-qa and sanchonet. More detail is available in the PR description. cardano-playground-pr-41

Cardano-mainnet​

  • Sets node pre-release (-ng) to 10.2.1, cardano-cli pre-release to 10.4.0.0 and mithril-cli to v2506.0. Cleans up deprecated environments such as private, shelley-qa and sanchonet. More detail is available in the PR description. cardano-mainnet-pr-31

Iohk-nix​

  • This PR removes cardano-lib private, sanchonet, shelley_qa and legacy testnet environments, all of which are shutdown. It also adds a default peer snapshot file per environment, updates the usePeersFromLedgerAfterSlot value per environment, cleans up some unused code and makes some lsp lint suggested changes: iohk-nix-pr-593

Repository Work In Progress -- PRs and Branches​

· 2 min read
Alexey Kuleshevich

High level summary​

As part of tackling tech dept we have worked on improving the entrypoint interface that consensus uses to interact with ledger. Besides that we worked on restructuring some parts of the ledger state representation to make a more type safe distinction for changes introduced in Conway era. We have also implemented an alternative way of deserializing types that live on chain, which once intergrated into downstream components will allow us to have faster and more accurate decoders.

Low level summary​

Features​

  • pull-4907 - Remove no longer needed workarounds
  • pull-4890 - Invert mempool
  • pull-4861 - Convert CertState to a type family
  • pull-4846 - Non-Annotator DecCBOR instances
  • pull-4903 - Switch to using TxCert type family
  • pull-4889 - Change ApplyBlock interface
  • pull-4905 - Move EraGov interface into cardano-ledger-core
  • pull-4895 - Add ToCBOR/FromCBOR instances for Genesis config types

Testing​

  • pull-4865 - Enable Imp conformance for GOV
  • pull-4887 - Add Imp fixup for collateral return txout
  • pull-4897 - Rename ImpTest helpers
  • pull-4908 - Add type parameter to KeySpace and GenEnv

Infrastructure and releasing​

· 2 min read
Jean-Philippe Raynaud

High level overview​

This week, the Mithril team continued implementing incremental certification of the Cardano database, focusing on feature stabilization and production readiness. They also worked on supporting the upcoming Cardano node v.10.2 and documenting the certification process for each certifiable data type.

Finally, the team completed cleaning up legacy code from the 'Thales' era and started working on a slave mode for the aggregator signer registration.

Low level overview​

  • Completed the issue Support evolving cloud artifact locations type to avoid client breaking change #2293
  • Completed the issue Build client WASM fails with Rust 1.85 #2325
  • Completed the issue Cleanup legacy code following Pythagoras era activation #2316
  • Worked on the issue Enhance artifact structure for Incremental Cardano DB #2291
  • Worked on the issue Enhance computation of required disk space for Incremental Cardano DB in client CLI #2292
  • Completed the issue Implement an example for Incremental Cardano DB #2330
  • Completed the issue Document Cardano transactions signature and proving in website #1700
  • Completed the issue Document Cardano stake distribution signature in website [#2297](https://github.com/input-output-hk/mithril/issues/2297
  • Completed the issue Document Cardano full database signature in website #2298
  • Completed the issue Document Cardano incremental database signature in website #2331
  • Worked on the issue Hydra CI fails with OpenSSL error on Linux x86_64 runners #2295
  • Worked on the issue Upgrade to Cardano 10.2 #2333
  • Worked on the issue Implement a slave mode for the signer registration in the aggregator #2334

· 4 min read
Michael Karg

High level summary​

  • Benchmarking: Plutus memory budget scaling benchmarks; UTxO-HD benchmarks, leading to a fixed regression; Genesis benchmarks.
  • Development: Ouroboros Genesis and UTxO-HD adjustments in workbench; Maintenance tasks.
  • Infrastructure: Removing outdated deployments; Haskell profile definition merged; workbench simplification ongoing.
  • Tracing: C library development ongoing; Feature implementation according to community feedback; test removeal of old system.

Low level overview​

Benchmarking​

We've run and analyzed scaling benchmarks of Plutus execution budgets. In this series of benchmarks, we measured the performance impact of changes to the memory budgets (both transaction and block). We observed an expected, and reasonable, increase in certain metrics only. Furthermore, we've shown this increase to be linearly correlated to the budget raise. This means that when exploring the headroom of those budgets, the performance cost for the network is alawys predictable. The benchmarks serve as a base for discussing potential changes to those budgets in Mainnet protocol parameters.

When building a performance baseline for UTxO-HD, we were able to locate a regression in its new in-memory backing store, LedgerDB V2. We created a local reproduction of that for the Consensus team, who was able to successfully adress the regression. A corresponding benchmarking report will be published on Cardano Updates.

Furthermore, we've performed benchmarks with the Ouroboros Genesis feature enabled and compared them to the release benchmark baseline. We could not detect any performance risk to the network during "normal operations", i.e. when all nodes are caught up with the chain tip.

Development​

During the course of building performance baselines for Ouroboros Genesis and UTxO-HD, we've developed various updates to the performance workbench to correctly handle the new Genesis consensus mode, as well as adjustments to the latest changes in the UTxO-HD node.

Additionally, we built several small quality-of-life improvements for the workbench, as well as investigated and fixed an inconsistent metric (Node Issue #6113).

Infrastructure​

The recent maintenance work also extended to the infrastructure: We've removed the dependency on deprecated environment definitions in iohk-nix by porting the relevant configurations over to the workbench. This facilitates a thorough cleanup of iohk-nix by the SRE team.

As the Haskell package defining benchmarking profiles has been merged, and all code replaced by it successfully removed, we're now working very hard on simplifying the interaction between the workbench and nix. This mostly covers removing redundancies that have lost their motivation, applying to both how workbench calls itself recursively multiple times, as well as how (and how many) corresponding nix store paths are created when evaluating derivations. This will both enhance maintainability, and result in much lighter workbench builds locally - but especially on CI runners.

Tracing​

Work on the self-contained C library implementing trace forwarding is ongoing. As forwarding is defined in terms of an OuroborosApplication, it's non-trivial to re-implement the feautures of the latter in C as well - such as handshake, version negotiation, and multiplexing. However, for the intended purpose of said library, it is unavoidable.

We've also started working on a new release of cardano-tracer, the trace / metrics consuming service in the new tracing system. This release is geared towards feature or change requests we've received from the community and found very valuable feedback. Having a seperate service to process all trace output enables us to react much quicker to this feedback, and decouple delivery from the Node's release cycle.

Last not least, we're doing an experimental run on creating a build of Node with the legacy tracing system removed. As the system is deeply woven into the code base, and some of the new system's components keep compatibility with the old one, untangling and removing these dependencies is a large endeavour. This build serves as a prototype to identify potential blockers, or decisions to be made, and eventually as a blueprint for removing the legacy system in some future Node release.