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DATU Implementation Plan

This roadmap outlines the key milestones required to turn the DATU reference architecture into a production-ready platform.

Phase 0 – Project Mobilization (Weeks 0-2)

  1. Governance Mobilization
  2. Draft and circulate a steering committee charter that defines decision domains, quorum rules, and conflict resolution paths.
  3. Confirm named representatives for consensus, smart contract, application, and compliance working groups; record their contact information and availability in a shared roster.
  4. Schedule the first three governance syncs and publish agendas covering validator onboarding policy, risk management expectations, and milestone approvals.
  5. Regulatory & Risk Alignment
  6. Host at least two listening sessions with legal, privacy, and procurement experts to capture jurisdiction-specific requirements.
  7. Open a compliance tracker (issues board or shared spreadsheet) that maps outstanding questions to accountable owners and due dates.
  8. Produce a public-facing summary of regulatory constraints and mitigations to guide Phase 1 engineering decisions.
  9. Collaboration Infrastructure
  10. Complete access reviews for repositories, documentation portals, and communication tools; revoke unused accounts and enable MFA for administrators.
  11. Publish contributor onboarding materials, including contribution guidelines, CLA instructions if needed, and a 48-hour response SLA for support requests.
  12. Validate CI/CD pipelines with a dry-run build of the existing codebase and document the process for filing infrastructure incidents.
  13. Exit Criteria Before Phase 1 Begins
  14. Steering committee roster, working group membership, and governance charter are approved and posted to the documentation portal.
  15. Compliance tracker shows all critical legal and regulatory questions assigned with target resolution dates.
  16. Collaboration infrastructure checklist is complete, and a mobilization status report confirms stakeholders can join development activities without blockers.

Status Update (2025-10-09): To accelerate the Stellar fork, the steering committee authorized Phase 1 engineering work to begin while the remaining Phase 0 items are tracked in a mobilization backlog. Owners must continue closing open governance, compliance, and tooling tasks in parallel so the deferred exit criteria can be met immediately after the fork is stabilized.

Status Update (2025-10-11): Validator configuration, Soroban execution budgets, and initial DATU Testnet v1 rollout milestones are captured in the Phase 1 execution brief. Mobilization owners are mapped to each technical deliverable so the deferred Phase 0 backlog closes alongside validator bring-up.

Phase 1 – Consensus Network Foundation (Weeks 3-10)

Immediate Kickoff Priorities

  • Stand up a shared "Phase 0 Backlog" tracker that lists each outstanding mobilization deliverable, its current owner, and the dependency it unblocks in the network rollout.
  • Publish a joint risk register summarizing the implications of running Phase 1 before Phase 0 concludes, including mitigation checkpoints (e.g., legal reviews, validator onboarding approvals) tied to specific fork milestones.

  • Confirm communication cadences between engineering leads and mobilization coordinators so regulatory or governance blockers discovered during development can be escalated without slowing validator work.

  • Stellar Fork Preparation

  • Clone Stellar Core and Horizon repositories.
  • Define DATU-specific network parameters (genesis accounts, quorum set policy, ledger close intervals).
  • Integrate hardware security modules for validator keys.
  • Stand up the Docker Compose fork in infrastructure/stellar-fork/ to validate configuration changes quickly.
  • Soroban Runtime Integration
  • Enable Soroban smart contract support within validator nodes.
  • Configure continuous integration for Soroban WASM builds and tests.
  • Testnet Launch
  • Deploy minimum viable validator set (Tier 0 + Tier 1 organizations).
  • Publish public RPC endpoints for developers and observers.

Phase 2 – Smart Contract Suite (Weeks 8-18)

  1. Specification & Modeling
  2. Draft detailed contract specs for BudgetRegistry, ProcurementLedger, DisbursementTracker, AccountabilityScores, and GovernanceVoting.
  3. Define state diagrams, event schemas, and failure handling.
  4. Development & Verification
  5. Implement contracts in Rust targeting Soroban.
  6. Write unit, integration, and property-based tests.
  7. Perform third-party security review and formal analysis for critical invariants.
  8. Deployment
  9. Deploy contracts to testnet with controlled access.
  10. Run scenario simulations with real-world budget/procurement data.

Phase 3 – Application Layer (Weeks 12-26)

  1. Government Budget Portal
  2. Build React/Next.js front-end with secure admin workflows.
  3. Integrate identity verification (OIDC / DID-based) and multi-factor auth.
  4. Connect to Soroban contracts via Horizon API for transaction submission.
  5. Public Transparency Portal
  6. Create public explorer with charts, alerts, and downloadable datasets.
  7. Implement search and filtering across budget lines, procurements, and disbursements.
  8. Civic Engagement APIs
  9. Design REST/GraphQL endpoints with OAuth2 scopes for watchdog applications.
  10. Provide webhooks and SDKs (JavaScript, Python) for integration.

Phase 4 – Data & Document Layer (Weeks 20-32)

  • Integrate IPFS/Filecoin or compliant national data storage for large artifacts.
  • Implement document hashing pipeline and notarization service linking to on-chain transactions.
  • Build audit trail dashboards to trace document lifecycle events.

Phase 5 – Governance & Compliance (Weeks 28-36)

  • Operationalize tiered validator onboarding, including KYC/KYB checks.
  • Launch on-chain governance using GovernanceVoting contract.
  • Draft and ratify protocol upgrade and incident response procedures.

Phase 6 – Security Hardening & Observability (Weeks 32-40)

  • Establish continuous monitoring with Prometheus/Grafana and alerting runbooks.
  • Conduct penetration tests and red-team exercises.
  • Finalize disaster recovery and key rotation policies.

Phase 7 – Pilot & Production Launch (Weeks 40-52)

  • Run pilot with selected government agencies and civil society partners.
  • Collect feedback, iterate on UX and contract parameters.
  • Scale validator set, finalize legal agreements, and launch public mainnet.

Deliverables & Success Metrics

Phase Key Deliverables Success Indicators
0 Governance charter, project tooling Steering committee operational, documentation hub live
1 DATU testnet v1 >99% validator uptime, ledger close time <5s
2 Audited Soroban contracts All critical contracts pass formal verification and security review
3 Functional portals & APIs End-to-end budget submission to public visibility demo
4 Document notarization service 100% of test documents hashed and retrievable
5 Governance framework Tiered quorum policy ratified on-chain
6 Security & observability stack Mean time to detect incidents <5 minutes
7 Public mainnet Pilot agencies onboarded, citizen auditors active

This plan can be adapted as the team gains insights from pilots and stakeholder feedback. Each phase should end with a retrospective to refine subsequent milestones.