[SPEC] Simulation environment and test system of the validator

[hellwolf]

!NB! We are still sourcing the development partner for this

Why this is being developed?

Superfluid specification is being built up as a set of concepts defined in the superfluid-protocol-spec-core haskell module.

Why Specification?

• It serves as a reference impelmentation which will help to port the protocol to different blockchain implementations.
• It allows faster prototyping of new ideas in abstraction without being limited by any specific blockchain.

Why Haskell?

• First of all, haskell is a pure, strongly typed, concise, high level, memory-managed modular language.
• Because of this, it is well suited to for the job of writing the specification for the protocol where abstraction, precision and succinctness matter.
• Having higher level of abstractions gets Superfluid protocol closer to being able to formal definitions in category theory e.g.
• Developers using Haskell tend to be more comfortable in refining concepts and constant refactoring, sometimes pedantically. But production code usually can't afford these due to harder to refactor than using Haskell.

Why Simulation Environment?

• An integrated experience for fast prototyping of new concepts.
• Easy to share and demonstrate the foundational tech.

Why Test System?

• Re-use the simulation environment but for controlled tests.
• As the basis for implementation validations.

Requirements

The validator should be able to run in at least two different modes

Web App Mode | A Simulation Environment with REPL

• A web app that servers the simulation sessions in the backend, while frontend reads the state of the simulation and renders them.
• The state of the simulation mainly cosists of:
  • Global state: tokens, token statistics, etc.
  • Account state: real-time balances of accounts in testing, active agreements of the account.
• Renderings of these states should include charts, timeline (with the ability to travel back-and-forth in time), etc.
• User inputs should support simple DSL with a REPL like interface.
  • The design of the DSL could draw hints from how otherwise a test case look like: https://github.com/superfluid-finance/protocol-monorepo/blob/dev/packages/spec-haskell/packages/validator/src/Money/Superfluid/Validator/Demos/DFA.hs
• The backend should support multiple sessions, so that we could host it to limited partners for testing out.

Tester Mode

• The same DSL used in the web app mode should also be reused here to write the scenario test scripts.
• It can run any scenario test script using the same simulation engine, and take snapshots of test data as output.
• These test data outputs will be used in the future for validating protocol implementations.

[sunnyjaycer]

To be closed as per 5/11 convo w/ @hellwolf