# Distributed signaling Authors: - @gozala - @hugomrdias Initial PR: TBD <!-- Reference the PR first proposing this document. Oooh, self-reference! --> <!-- This template is for a proposal/brief/pitch for a significant project to be undertaken by a Web3 Dev project team. The goal of project proposals is to help us decide which work to take on, which things are more valuable than other things. --> <!-- A proposal should contain enough detail for others to understand how this project contributes to our team’s mission of product-market fit for our unified stack of protocols, what is included in scope of the project, where to get started if a project team were to take this on, and any other information relevant for prioritizing this project against others. It does not need to describe the work in much detail. Most technical design and planning would take place after a proposal is adopted. Good project scope aims for ~3-5 engineers for 1-3 months (though feel free to suggest larger-scoped projects anyway). Projects do not include regular day-to-day maintenance and improvement work, e.g. on testing, tooling, validation, code clarity, refactors for future capability, etc. --> <!-- For ease of discussion in PRs, consider breaking lines after every sentence or long phrase. --> ## Purpose &amp; impact #### Background &amp; intent _Describe the desired state of the world after this project? Why does that matter?_ <!-- Outline the status quo, including any relevant context on the problem you’re seeing that this project should solve. Wherever possible, include pains or problems that you’ve seen users experience to help motivate why solving this problem works towards top-line objectives. --> Centralized nature of signaling servers harms the ecosystem because: 1. We actively tell everyone to configure nodes to talk to their servers. 2. Teams building products have added burden of infrastrcuture. 3. Network gets fragmented peers configured to use signaling serevers A aren't gonig to discover peers that are configured to use signaling servers B. What we want instead is ecosystem in which: 1. New product teams can dedicate additional resources (as in operate always-on dialable nodes) without fragmenting a network. 2. New product improving infrastructure of the network as a whole, as opposed to creating an isolated island. 3. Remove a need for configuring nodes. At the high level we want nodes to announce to the network that they provide singnaling services, so that peers can learn about and use them when necassry without having to reconfigure IPFS nodes embedded in products and having to release new versions. #### Assumptions &amp; hypotheses _What must be true for this project to matter?_ <!--(bullet list)--> #### User workflow example _How would a developer or user use this new capability?_ <!--(short paragraph)--> #### Impact _How would this directly contribute to web3 dev stack product-market fit?_ <!-- Explain how this addresses known challenges or opportunities. What awesome potential impact/outcomes/results will we see if we nail this project? --> #### Leverage _How much would nailing this project improve our knowledge and ability to execute future projects?_ <!-- Explain the opportunity or leverage point for our subsequent velocity/impact (e.g. by speeding up development, enabling more contributors, etc) --> #### Confidence _How sure are we that this impact would be realized? Label from [this scale](https://medium.com/@nimay/inside-product-introduction-to-feature-priority-using-ice-impact-confidence-ease-and-gist-5180434e5b15)_. <!--Explain why this rating--> ## Project definition #### Brief plan of attack <!--Briefly describe the milestones/steps/work needed for this project--> #### What does done look like? _What specific deliverables should completed to consider this project done?_ #### What does success look like? _Success means impact. How will we know we did the right thing?_ <!-- Provide success criteria. These might include particular metrics, desired changes in the types of bug reports being filed, desired changes in qualitative user feedback (measured via surveys, etc), etc. --> #### Counterpoints &amp; pre-mortem _Why might this project be lower impact than expected? How could this project fail to complete, or fail to be successful?_ #### Alternatives _How might this project’s intent be realized in other ways (other than this project proposal)? What other potential solutions can address the same need?_ #### Dependencies/prerequisites <!--List any other projects that are dependencies/prerequisites for this project that is being pitched.--> #### Future opportunities <!--What future projects/opportunities could this project enable?--> ## Required resources #### Effort estimate <!--T-shirt size rating of the size of the project. If the project might require external collaborators/teams, please note in the roles/skills section below). For a team of 3-5 people with the appropriate skills: - Small, 1-2 weeks - Medium, 3-5 weeks - Large, 6-10 weeks - XLarge, >10 weeks Describe any choices and uncertainty in this scope estimate. (E.g. Uncertainty in the scope until design work is complete, low uncertainty in execution thereafter.) --> #### Roles / skills needed <!--Describe the knowledge/skill-sets and team that are needed for this project (e.g. PM, docs, protocol or library expertise, design expertise, etc.). If this project could be externalized to the community or a team outside PL's direct employment, please note that here.-->