---
# System prepended metadata

title: EPF6 - Week 3
tags: [Ethereum Protocol Fellowship 6]

---

# EPF6 - Week 3

## Overview

- Finalized project topic: 
    - **Lodestar migration: from sim test framework to Kurtosis**
- EPF Day during [EthCC](https://ethcc.io/) (Cannes) - project proposals presentations
- Followed discussions on Kurtosis evolution in Lodestar Discord dev channels
- Creation of a dedicated Discord thread in Lodestar channel for Kurtosis/sim testing framework support and discussions
- Met Lodestar team to discuss testing and migration details

## Updates and details

This week EPF Day took place with project proposal presentations during EthCC in Cannes. 
During the conference, I participated in a 3-hour EthMagicians forum, where draft EIPs and the structure of [eth-magicians](https://ethereum-magicians.org/) compared to [ethresearch](https://ethresear.ch/) were discussed. One point was whether combining these two platforms would make them more user-friendly for newcomers.

I also had the opportunity to connect in person with a member of the Lodestar team to discuss migration technicalities and other fascinating topics.

The findings were:
- Details on the migration, main take is "*it no longer makes sense to "duplicate" the efforts, Kurtosis will be used directly*"
- The current testing documentation is being actively developed to facilitate entry for new users and developers looking to contribute. The hope is this EPF project can help with additional written resources and documentation materials. 
- As a side note unrelated to Kurtosis: Lodestar will start adopting [Zig](https://ziglang.org/), a general-purpose programming language


## Main points
Following these discussions, a **dedicated thread** was created on the Lodestar Discord to dive deeper into and clarify the scope and understanding of the current simulation tests, as well as the migration to Kurtosis. 

#### The **findings**:
- Run nightly Kurtosis test suite: Execute full test suite on 24-hour **cronjob schedule**
- Run Kurtosis sanity checks on every PR: Execute minimal test suite for pull request validation (currently implemented with sim tests)
- Maintain and integrate assertion framework with Kurtosis: **Preserve** existing assertion framework integration
- A potential outcome of the migration would be slim down the [ethpandaops/ethereum-package](https://github.com/ethpandaops/ethereum-package?tab=readme-ov-file) to bare minimal setup that is native to Lodestar codebase: programmatically add and run test for new features, without the need to use assertions framework
- `Runner` sim tests layer replaced with Kurtosis and minimum possible ethpandaops/ethereum-package.
 
And as mentioned before, the execution of my project will potentially also help in consolidating and enhancing the existing Lodestar test documentation.
      
   
## Week 4 TODOs 
- Finalize the project proposal with these week insights (Discord thread and Lodestar team) on testing migration
- The HOWs: Define the methodology, roadmap and potential pathways for contributing to the migration process
- Connect and coordinate with Lodestar core devs
- Submit and collect feedbacks on my project proposal
- Deep-dive into ethereum-package and Lodestar codebase to better formulate migration scope and requirements



### Useful resources checked

[ethpandaops/ethereum-package](https://github.com/ethpandaops/ethereum-package?tab=readme-ov-file)

[Lodestar assertions](https://github.com/ChainSafe/lodestar/tree/unstable/packages/cli/test/utils/crucible/assertions) 

