Waku v2 has been in development for quite some time, and we’ve been mixing more production-ready issues with more enhanced capabilities such as SWAP and RLN. At the same time, initial integration with projects such as the Status app and WalletConnect have been taking longer than expected. By dogfooding ourselves, we:
(a) remove the dependency on things outside of our control and
(b) focus development on most pressing needs.
In light of this, the most important goal for Vac and Waku platform team over the next 6 weeks (first half of Q2) is:
Prio 1. Dogfooding and making Waku v2 more robust
As evidenced by:
- Waku chat moving 100% to dogfooding, with Discord being bridged and read-only
- N nodes operated outside of Status cluster and used for normal operation (open network)
- Perceived as useful enough for a basic, IRC-style, public chat by core devs
- Peer retention (basically core devs using it daily)
As well as:
- Multiple implementations participating (Go and JS, subset of spec implementation)
- Improved specs to facilitate this, and make the specs easier to consume
nim-waku is the main reference implementation where development focus will remain for the Vac team. In parallel, a JS implementation is being developed by the Waku platform team, as well as a Go implementation for the Core app.
Depending on where we are in a couple of weeks, we’ll re-assess. This also depends on how hiring and general integration is going.
In terms of specific pieces of work this means things such as:
- General improved stability and connectivity for node and network
- Improved robustness for store, especially nodes with lower uptime and outside of main cluster
- Improved specs overview and specs (how to use, state, contribution, clarifications, etc)
- Support other implementations and cross-implementation testing
- Better insight into node and network operation (connectivity, metrics, etc)
Prio 2 are other things that are on the general roadmap, such as hiring, RLN, SWAP, etc.