KAGOME – the C++ implementation of Polkadot Host milestone 2

KAGOME is a C++ implementation of the Polkadot Host that is protocol compatible with the original implementation in Rust and can already be used to run Relay chain validators and syncing nodes. With KAGOME and other client implementations we bring client diversity to Polkadot, mitigating risks of fatal bugs in a single client implementation, bringing innovations and broadening the development community. You may watch the most recent presentation during Polkadot Decoded 2023 to learn more about KAGOME.

During previous work as part of Kusama treasury grant, the following results were achieved:

Parachains protocol integration
Light clients compatibility
Support for fast and warp synchronizations
Multithreading execution

In addition to features that were planned during the previous proposal our team achieved the following:

The goals of this proposal are to prepare KAGOME for the upcoming features of Polkadot, such as asynchronous backing, SASSAFRAS, BEEFY, and so on. We also plan to further improve KAGOME by improving RPC and WASM performance. Additionally, we plan to conduct an external security audit to build confidence in KAGOME among node operators. To achieve all of this, the work on the new proposal scope will be a joint effort between Quadrivium, Soramitsu, and SRLabs:

Quadrivium is a team of original C++ developers that developed KAGOME and C++ Libp2p. In August 2023 entire team has spun off from Soramitsu to group Quadrivium that will be responsible for feature implementation.
During this grant proposal implementation Soramitsu partners with Quadrivium to provide DevOps, QA and Security services for KAGOME. Soramitsu team is also experienced with KAGOME and Substrate and has necessary expertise to provide necessary infrastructure for testing KAGOME to ensure its stability, conformance with the spec and compatibility with Substrate
SRLabs is a Security Audit company that will be conducting an initial audit of KAGOME. SRLabs already has years of experience in auditing Substrate, which makes it a perfect fit for checking KAGOME

In addition, Web3 Foundation will be participating as technical advisor and will provide mentoring and technical support to ensure the completeness of milestones and conforming the specification.

The scope of this proposal:

Optimized Merkle storage
RPC Improvements: caching, new interfaces
Asynchronous backing
Libp2p improvements: QUIC, WebRTC, DOS protection
SASSAFRAS
BEEFY
New WASM Engine (WASM Edge)
General maintenance
Development infrastructure
Integration tests with Zombienet
Security Audit

Requested DOT: 253862

Please review the full proposal with detailed tasks descriptions and price breakdown:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/17ZmueuaMjXY3_SRBHxWtKNHzpLNtSd_KGVfeTII6Nbc/

KAGOME is a computer program that helps run the Polkadot Host. It is written in C++ and can be used to run Relay chain validators and syncing nodes.

KAGOME has many features, including parachains protocol integration, light clients compatibility, support for fast and warp synchronizations, and multithreading execution.

The KAGOME team has achieved many milestones, including being the first non-Substrate Live validator on Westend network, Zombienet support, improved performance of Erasure coding library, and joining Thousand Kusama validators program.

The goals of this proposal are to prepare KAGOME for upcoming features of Polkadot, improve RPC and WASM performance, and conduct an external security audit.

The work on the new proposal scope will be a joint effort between Quadrivium, Soramitsu, and SRLabs. The proposal includes optimized Merkle storage, RPC improvements, asynchronous backing, Libp2p improvements, SASSAFRAS, BEEFY, new WASM Engine, general maintenance, development infrastructure, integration tests with Zombienet, and security audit.