Add Improve & Update Typechain Polkadot

[WookashWackomy]

Project Abstract

A reliable, developer friendly typegen tool is crucial for the developer ecosystem.
This application aims to improve Typechain Polkadot, extending its capabilities & reworking parts of it that make it cumbersome to use.

Grant level

• Level 1: Up to $10,000, 2 approvals
• Level 2: Up to $30,000, 3 approvals
• Level 3: Unlimited, 5 approvals (for >$100k: Web3 Foundation Council approval)

Application Checklist

• The application template has been copied and aptly renamed (project_name.md).
• I have read the application guidelines.
• Payment details have been provided (Polkadot AssetHub (DOT, USDC & USDT) address in the application and bank details via email, if applicable).
• I understand that 30% of each milestone will be paid in vested DOT, to the Polkadot address listed in the application.
• I am aware that, in order to receive a grant, I (and the entity I represent) have to successfully complete a KYC/KYB check.
• The software delivered for this grant will be released under an open-source license specified in the application.
• The initial PR contains only one commit (squash and force-push if needed).
• The grant will only be announced once the first milestone has been accepted (see the announcement guidelines).
• I prefer the discussion of this application to take place in a private Element/Matrix channel. My username is: @_______:matrix.org (change the homeserver if you use a different one)

[github-actions]

CLA Assistant Lite bot All contributors have signed the CLA ✍️ ✅

[WookashWackomy]

I have read and hereby sign the Contributor License Agreement.

[keeganquigley]

Hi @WookashWackomy thanks for the application. Usually we require all the mandatory deliverables 0a - 0e. that are present in the application template. Could you please add these to each milestone and move the current deliverables underneath starting with 1., 2., etc.

An article is only mandatory for the last milestone, and if we can run everything with pnpm or yarn it's probably fine to remove Docker. Thanks!

[WookashWackomy]

Hi @WookashWackomy thanks for the application. Usually we require all the mandatory deliverables 0a - 0e. that are present in the application template. Could you please add these to each milestone and move the current deliverables underneath starting with 1., 2., etc.

An article is only mandatory for the last milestone, and if we can run everything with pnpm or yarn it's probably fine to remove Docker. Thanks!

Hello, sure. Just updated the proposal with your suggestions. I've left the Docker but marked as optional - perhaps it would be handy to provide a Dockerfile with a strictly set runtime & all of the deps just for the sake of testing the project without the need to use local environment. Though I'm not 100% sure if it makes sense in a real life scenario. That being said - it's there and we'll try to make it in a way to be useful. Thanks for the feedback!

[keeganquigley]

Thanks @WookashWackomy I'm going to mark this as on hold for now until we know more about the future of ink! Will get back to you in the coming days.

[semuelle]

Thanks for the application. What's the status of the Brushfam repo, is Brushfam still involved in Typechain's maintenance? My main concern for such a grant would be that we need to make sure that the work is merged into the main repo, instead of you having to maintain a fork and thus possibly splitting the community.

[WookashWackomy]

Thanks for the application. What's the status of the Brushfam repo, is Brushfam still involved in Typechain's maintenance? My main concern for such a grant would be that we need to make sure that the work is merged into the main repo, instead of you having to maintain a fork and thus possibly splitting the community.

Brushfam has not been maintaing the project for a long time and did clearly state that if we, community want to make any updates/changes we have to create a fork :/
There is a fork, maintained by prosopo team (https://github.com/prosopo/typechain-polkadot), however:

1. it contains no functional changes or bug fixes (besides 1 typescript only, non runtime related fix & merging one external PR ) - just updating dependencies
2. We have contacted the team and they don't plan on making any adjustments/updates to typechain - definitely not during next few months. That, in our opinion, emphasizes the justification to undertake the actions mentioned in the proposal. Especially given the short timeline of the proposed actions (which we are very confident of being able to deliver due to our familiarity with the project overall & a good understanding of project's code & polkadotjs overall).

Regarding hosting:
We really regret the state typechain-polkadot has found itself in and do not care that much where it's hosted as long as it's in a good, usable, user friendly state and the community has a platform to submit & make changes to the project.

We've been debating about hosting it in an appropriate place for such project - https://github.com/inkdevhub/ and creating a wide group of maitainers from different teams/projects. That would make possible to act quickly at least when a community member creates a PR - which was difficult to achieve for for a long time and forced people to fork the project.
However we could submit the work on a branch in prosopo's repo to have it merged in out there.

(Offtopic note - we've been thinking about hosting Pendzl on inkdevhub as well and will attempt to do it soon)

[semuelle]

inkdevhub might be a good place. Once the ink! team has reestablished itself, they might have an opinion on this as well.

[WookashWackomy]

Hello @semuelle. Could you share an update on the state of the approval process of this proposal?

[semuelle]

Hi @WookashWackomy, sorry for the delay. I am happy to support the project and will share it with the rest of the committee. They will probably have comments and questions in the coming days.

[keeganquigley]

Thanks @WookashWackomy based on your previous work I'm also happy to approve. But curious what steps you will take afterwards to gain more traction with this tool?

[WookashWackomy]

Thanks @WookashWackomy based on your previous work I'm also happy to approve. But curious what steps you will take afterwards to gain more traction with this tool?

Thanks @keeganquigley for the approve. Let me somehow reiterate here - the goal of so called "typechain" is to be an important piece & facilitator in areas such as building, scripting, testing etc. Therefore a great, and honestly the best way to get traction is to prove it is such building block indeed - by providing examples of usage in real life projects.
Besides us having plans to build/refine and then release to public a number of projects/scripts after completing the work mentioned in the proposal....we firmly believe that this set of typechain libraries will start getting traction itself by being the most compelling and easy to pick up tooling.

[github-actions]

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