Architecture design

This section of the book shows the software architecture of DarkFi and the network implementations.

For this phase of development we organize into teams lead by a single surgeon. The role of the team is to give full support to the surgeon and make his work effortless and smooth.

Component	Description	Status
consensus	Algorithm for blockchain consensus	Alpha
zk / crypto	ZK compiler and crypto algos	Alpha
wasm	WASM smart contract system	Alpha
net	p2p network protocol code	Alpha
blockchain	consensus + net + db	Alpha
bridge	Develop robust & secure multi-chain bridge architecture	None
tokenomics	Research and define DRK tokenomics	Alpha
util	Various utilities and tooling	Alpha
arch	Architecture, project management and integration	Alpha

Release Cycle

gantt
    title Release Cycle
    dateFormat  DD-MM-YYYY
    axisFormat  %m-%y
    section Phases
    Dcon0            :done, d0, 11-12-2021, 120d
    Dcon1            :done, d1, after d0,   120d
    Dcon2            :done, d2, after d1,   120d
    Dcon3            :done, d3, after d2,   60d
    Dcon4            :      d4, after d3,   14d
    Dcon5            :      d5, after d4,   7d

Phase	Description	Duration	Details	Version
Dcon0	Research		Research new techniques, draft up architecture design documents and modify the specs. During this phase the team looks into new experimental techniques and begins to envision how the product will evolve during the next phase of the cycle.	pre-alpha
Dcon1	New features and changes		Add big features and merge branches. Risky changes that are likely to cause bugs or additional work must be done before the end of this phase. The first 10 weeks overlap with the Dcon3 & Dcon4 phases of the previous release, and many developers will focus on bug fixing in those first weeks. Developers dedicate a steady 1-2 days/week to the bug tracker, focusing on triaging and newly introduced bugs.	alpha
Dcon2	Improve and stabilize		Work to improve, optimize and fix bugs in new and existing features. Only smaller and less risky changes, including small features, should be made in this phase. If a new feature is too unstable or incomplete, it will be reverted before the end of this phase. Developers spend 2-3 days/week in the bug tracker, triaging, fixing recently introduced or prioritized module bugs.	alpha
Dcon3	Bug fixing only	2 months	Focus on bug fixing and getting the release ready. Development moves to the stable stabilizing branch. In master Dcon1 for the next release starts. stable is regularly merged into master. High priority bugs dictate how much time developers will spend in the tracker as oppose to work on the next release Dcon1 features.	beta
Dcon4	Prepare release	2 weeks	Stable branch is frozen to prepare for the release. Only critical and carefully reviewed bug fixes allowed. Release candidate and release builds are made. Developers spend a short time 5 days/week with an eye in the tracker for any unexpected high priority regression.	release candidate
Dcon5	Release	1 week	Stage where the final builds are packaged for all platforms, last tweaks to the logs, memes, social media, video announcements. The final switch is flicked on dark.fi for the new release to show up on the Download page.	release