CPS-0011? | Universal JSON Encoding for Domain Types

[klntsky]

Cardano domain types have canonical CDDL definitions (for every era), but when it comes to use in web apps, where JSON is the universally accepted format, there is no definite standard.

As a result, software solutions are incompatible with each other, and dApp developers are forced to write code for conversions that could in princible be unnecessary, because the semantics of different JSON layouts are often the same. In particular, this problem is very real when offchain libraries need to provide support for different query layer providers (examples: Lucid, Mesh.js, cardano-transaction-lib, Atlas).

The initiative to standardize query layers on Cardano is currently blocked due to absence of a standardized JSON data schema. However, such a schema would be useful in contexts other than query layers, which is the reason why this CPS is separate.

(proposal rendered from branch)

[rphair]

Agreed to promote at today's CIP meeting 🚀

[rphair]

@klntsky this looks fine from my level (not an implementor) and provides a good understanding of the problem. It passed @michaelpj's (edit: cursory) review (#742 (comment)) with only one change requested & done, so I have nothing further to add besides watching for consensus during further edits on the way to merging... great job with this 🚀

Would also like to see if & how this might relate to CIPs pending here:

• CIP-0114? | CBOR Tags Registry #752
• CIP-0115? | CBOR tag definition - ED25519-BIP32 Keys #753

[michaelpj]

Sorry, to be clear, I haven't reviewed this in detail. My comment was just a drive-by one.

[Ryun1]

I believe this to be a well written problem statement, happy to see it merged.

[rphair]

(operator error: redundant review)

[Ryun1]

One final comment from me (although raised by @Crypto2099)

Have we considered the use of JSON-LD for this standard?

[Ryun1]

We will keep this open for a couple more days ahead of the next wallets working group call
as we will be discussing this CPS there as well potential solutions for it

[klntsky]

@Ryun1 json-ld is not a schema language. See the original motivation for it: https://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html

For governance metadata it may be a good choice, but in this case there simply wouldn't be any documents to interlink.

[rphair]

@Ryun1 are we punting this until next meeting (https://hackmd.io/@cip-editors/83) or do you feel we are ready to merge this now?

[Ryun1]

We are good to merge 💪