# \[Proposal\] Anoma Research Topic Report: Controllers

**URL:** <https://forum.anoma.net/t/proposal-anoma-research-topic-report-controllers/357>\
**Category:** ART\
**Created:** [November 1, 2023, 10:39pm UTC](https://forum.anoma.net/t/proposal-anoma-research-topic-report-controllers/357 "2023-11-01T22:39:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![isheff](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/forum.anoma.net/isheff/32/15_2.png) [@isheff](https://forum.anoma.net/u/isheff)\
**Post date:** [November 1, 2023, 10:39pm UTC](https://forum.anoma.net/t/proposal-anoma-research-topic-report-controllers/357/1 "2023-11-01T22:39:30Z")

</div>

The idea here is to produce an [Anoma Research Topic Report](https://forum.anoma.net/t/the-anoma-research-topics-community/200) specifying how we want Controllers to work, and why they should work that way.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![isheff](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/forum.anoma.net/isheff/32/15_2.png) [@isheff](https://forum.anoma.net/u/isheff)\
**Post date:** [November 1, 2023, 10:47pm UTC](https://forum.anoma.net/t/proposal-anoma-research-topic-report-controllers/357/2 "2023-11-01T22:47:02Z")

</div>

# Scope

Here I try to lay out the scope of this report: what it should cover, and what it should not cover.

## Report should include / answer:

- what is a controller?
  - does a controller differ from a (replicated) state machine?
  - does a controller differ from an (external signing) identity?

- what makes a good controller?
- what can controllers do (to resources)?
- how do resources reference controllers?
  - this should include a notion of a resource graph
  - this should include some description of policy languages for creating / destroying / moving resources

- what kind of resource “moves” (destroying a resource and creating a similar one with a different resource graph) should be possible?
  - what does each move require from its controller?
  - what does each move require from its resource?
  - this may include a notion of resource “shares” for asynchronously moving resources “up their resource graph.”
  - this may include an examination of whether it’s possible to “simplify” a resource graph while “using” the resource.

## Report should not:

- specify a precise policy language of resource controller permissions (just examine what kind of things are possible / impossible).
- specify how to implement any particular kind of controller (we’re much more interested in the interface: what does a controller need to be able to do?)
- rule out possible controllers just because they seem unlikely to be useful.
- rely on any more specifics concerning resource structure / logics than absolutely necessary.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cwgoes](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/forum.anoma.net/cwgoes/32/22_2.png) [@cwgoes](https://forum.anoma.net/u/cwgoes)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2023, 2:36pm UTC](https://forum.anoma.net/t/proposal-anoma-research-topic-report-controllers/357/3 "2023-11-02T14:36:01Z")

</div>

Broadly aligned, a few specific comments:

- I think we should include a scope section describing our design goals and constraints for the controllers system, perhaps a bit similar to the first part of [the “controllers from first principles” topic](https://forum.anoma.net/t/controllers-from-first-principles/66), but further explicated and refined.
- I think we should describe what logic the resource machine - or a particular resource logic, perhaps - must run in order to _enforce_ the controller system correctly. I think your last section is similar to this - my request is specifically that we aim to get this all the way to pseudocode describing exactly what transition conditions must be checked.
- I think it is worth including a section on how controllers are similar to and different from what IBC does, as this is a design many people will be familiar with, and has some similar constraints (and some constraints that we don’t have because we control the whole protocol stack).

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cwgoes](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/user_avatar/forum.anoma.net/cwgoes/32/22_2.png) [@cwgoes](https://forum.anoma.net/u/cwgoes)\
**Post date:** [December 20, 2023, 5:40pm UTC](https://forum.anoma.net/t/proposal-anoma-research-topic-report-controllers/357/4 "2023-12-20T17:40:16Z")

</div>

Additional note for conversation: this report should cover basic domain/time partitioning of the commitment tree and nullifier set, which is weakly synchronized across all domains.

As a note, this task is tracked [here](https://github.com/anoma/anoma-pm-sync/issues/23).