Thank you for this!
I actually had an experience recently which revealed a problem that something like this could’ve mitigated. I met someone from another team who was tasked with integrating the same cryptographic primitive which I had experience and knowledge of. We didn’t even know of each other before that moment. We were able to talk together and come up with some solutions to challenges (see “Free” User Acquisition for Blockchains with Gasless Transactions ). If something like this had existed, that dev could’ve looked and found a list of all people that have also integrated (or implemented) the same cryptographic primitive and reached out before, and by the time we met together we could’ve made even more progress on the task.
So on a higher-level, I want to argue that building out and supporting something like this (not just with content, but software) is critical.
There’s a concept called the OODA loop: The OODA Loop - The Decision Lab Basically it describes a 4-step cycle of generalized decision making: Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. An operator must complete all four steps in order to make a decision and act on it. The ACZ think tank is relevant for reducing time spent in the first one or two stages, and making sure cycles are not wasted on buildings things the wrong way when they can be mitigated by reviewing existing implementations of a primitive or by coordinating with CCs who have experience with those primitives.
The OODA loop assumes an adversary, but in the case of a large distributed organization trying to build software that integrates with each other, our greatest adversary is entropy, which is accentuated by inefficient coordination. ACZ think tank improves coordination, reducing entropy, reducing wasted cycles, and thus reducing risk of failure.