Please describe your proposed solution.

Our solution, Sorbet, is a Chrome extension designed to facilitate the simulation, debugging, and troubleshooting of user interactions with dApps on the Cardano blockchain. At its core, Sorbet operates by allowing a user to view any dApp "as" a specific wallet.

This involves inputting a wallet address and selecting the type of wallet to browse as. The application then simulates that wallet in read-only mode, enabling it to view and interact with dApps as the user would. This allows developers or support staff to see any issues the user might be encountering from their perspective, rather than having to guess or ask lots of follow up questions. This level of insight can significantly speed up the problem diagnosis process, leading to quicker resolutions and improved user experiences.

Beyond this, Sorbet will have a number of additional features designed to facilitate more detailed testing and debugging:

1. Wrap a Wallet: Sorbet will enable a user to wrap an existing wallet, passing through functionality to that wallet. This feature would allow for more comprehensive testing and interaction with dApps, beyond simply viewing.
2. Inspect Traffic: The ability to inspect the traffic between a dApp and a wallet will be integrated into Sorbet. This feature can help identify potential bottlenecks, issues with data transmission, or other obscure bugs that may not be apparent from the user interface alone.
3. Return Arbitrary Data or Errors: For more robust testing, Sorbet will be able to return arbitrary data or errors to dApp requests. This feature is designed to test corner cases and ensure that the dApp can handle a variety of different situations and responses gracefully.

How does your proposed solution address the challenge and what benefits will this bring to the Cardano ecosystem?

By delivering these features in a user-friendly Chrome extension, Sorbet aims to become an invaluable tool for the Cardano ecosystem. Not only will it help enhance the reliability of dApps and improve the user experience, but it can also provide a robust platform for continued research, testing, and innovation in the Cardano dApp space. Furthermore, Sorbet is being designed with strong privacy and security measures in mind to ensure users' data protection and trust in the product.

How do you intend to measure the success of your project?

Measuring the success of Sorbet could be accomplished through a combination of quantitative and qualitative metrics, including but not limited to:

1. User Adoption: This would measure how many developers and support teams within the Cardano ecosystem adopt Sorbet as a troubleshooting and debugging tool. Increased adoption would be a positive indicator of the solution's success.
2. Reduced Time-to-Resolution: By tracking the time it takes to resolve user issues before and after the implementation of Sorbet, you can quantify the efficiency gained from using the tool.
3. Number of Bugs Identified and Resolved: This metric would provide an indicator of how effective Sorbet is in helping to improve the stability and reliability of dApps on the Cardano blockchain.
4. User Satisfaction: This could be gauged through user surveys or feedback forms, measuring whether Sorbet has improved the experience of developers, support teams, and end-users.
5. Increased dApp Quality: By tracking the number of issues, crashes, or critical errors in dApps before and after the implementation of Sorbet, you can gauge the tool's impact on overall dApp quality.
6. Educational Impact: For advanced users, researchers, and auditors, track the usage and feedback to understand if Sorbet has been effective in providing insights into dApp-wallet interactions.

Please describe your plans to share the outputs and results of your project?

1. Project Blog Posts and Updates: Regularly post updates on the project's progress on popular platforms like Medium, the project website’s own blog, and YouTube channel. These posts can detail recent accomplishments, hurdles overcome, and next steps.
2. Release Notes: With each significant release or update, publish detailed release notes outlining the changes, improvements, or bug fixes. These can be included directly in the project repository or on the project's website.
3. Webinars and Online Tutorials: Conduct webinars or create online tutorials to demonstrate the functionality of the ledger-mode fork of the Hydra Node. This will help users understand its features and how to use them.
4. Community Forum Discussions: Use platforms like the Cardano community forum or Reddit to engage with the community. Answer questions, ask for feedback, and participate in discussions about the project.
5. Presentations at Conferences or Meetups: Present the project's results at blockchain or Cardano specific conferences and meetups. This not only reaches a larger audience but also provides an opportunity to receive direct feedback from peers and users.
6. Social Media Announcements: Leverage Twitter, LinkedIn or other popular social media platforms to share project milestones and engage with the community.
7. Documentation: Finally, create robust documentation that thoroughly explains how to use the new ledger-mode fork, its benefits, and potential use-cases. This documentation should be easily accessible from the project's website and repository.

What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability?

Sundae Labs is a proven and trusted contributor to the Cardano Ecosystem. We built the first AMM DEX on Cardano, and supply turnkey Rewards and Governance products/services to other high-profile projects in the Cardano ecosystem. Additionally, we actively support various ad-hoc activities like Cardano security and scalability R&D. We also contribute actively to ongoing IOG initiatives like Voltaire and other core tech topics of discussion. Learn more at <https://sundae.fi>.

For this project in particular, we've already built the baseline for the extension, and used it to great effect in triaging user support tickets and improving the experience of our various platforms.

What are the main goals for the project and how will you validate if your approach is feasible?

1. Development and Implementation: Our first primary goal is to successfully develop and implement the features outlined in our roadmap. We're aiming for seamless functionality and want each feature to deliver the expected results.
2. User Adoption: We're targeting significant adoption of Sorbet among our key users. This group includes Cardano dApp developers, support teams, as well as advanced users, researchers, and auditors.
3. Improve Troubleshooting Efficiency: We aim to reduce the average time-to-resolution for support tickets within the Cardano ecosystem by a specific percentage.
4. Enhance dApp Quality: We want to contribute to a reduction in the number of critical issues, crashes, or errors in Cardano dApps. We'll define a particular percentage reduction as our goal to indicate improved overall dApp quality.
5. Educational Impact: We want Sorbet to be recognized as a valuable tool for understanding dApp-wallet interactions. We'll gauge this through user feedback and usage statistics from our advanced users, researchers, and auditors.

In order to validate the feasibility of Sorbet, we plan to:

1. Develop and Test a Prototype: Begin with a minimal viable product (MVP) of Sorbet, incorporating the basic features, and conduct extensive testing both internally and with a small, controlled group of external users.
2. Gather User Feedback and Improve Iteratively: We'll collect feedback from early users to understand if Sorbet is serving its intended purpose effectively. We'll make enhancements based on this feedback, refining Sorbet in response to real-world use.
3. Monitor Performance Metrics: During the initial usage period, we'll track key metrics such as time-to-resolution, the number of bugs resolved, and user satisfaction. If we see improvement in these areas, it'll be a strong sign that Sorbet is feasible and effective.
4. Conduct Market Research and User Surveys: Additional market research and user surveys will help us further validate the need for Sorbet and the effectiveness of our approach.

Please provide a detailed breakdown of your project’s milestones and each of the main tasks or activities to reach the milestone plus the expected timeline for the delivery.

Milestone 1: Development and Implementation of MVP

• Develop the core "impersonation" functionality in a secure, read-only mode.
• Test the core functionality extensively, both internally and with a select group of users.
• Integrate feedback and make necessary improvements.
• Develop an intuitive and user-friendly interface.
• Launch the MVP and collect initial user feedback.

Milestone 2: User Adoption and Initial Impact

• Develop and implement a marketing and outreach strategy to introduce Sorbet to the Cardano community.
• Monitor user adoption rates and gather feedback.
• Evaluate the initial impact on troubleshooting efficiency (e.g., time-to-resolution of support tickets).

Milestone 3: Development and Implementation of Additional Features

• Develop the "Wrap a Wallet" feature.
• Test the new feature and integrate user feedback.
• Develop the "Inspect Traffic" feature.
• Test the new feature and integrate user feedback.
• Develop the "Return Arbitrary Data or Errors" feature.
• Test the new feature and integrate user feedback.
• Roll out the updated version of Sorbet with all new features to all users.

Milestone 4: Assessing Impact and Refining the Tool

• Continuously monitor key performance metrics and user feedback.
• Evaluate the impact on dApp quality (e.g., reduction in the number of critical issues, crashes, or errors).
• Evaluate the educational impact (e.g., user feedback and usage statistics from advanced users, researchers, and auditors).
• Implement necessary improvements based on user feedback and performance metrics.

Please describe the deliverables, outputs and intended outcomes of each milestone.

Milestone 1: Development and Implementation of MVP

• Deliverable: Minimal Viable Product (MVP) of Sorbet
• Output: A Chrome extension that enables users to imitate a wallet on the Cardano blockchain in read-only mode.
• Intended Outcome: A functioning tool that allows Cardano dApp developers and support teams to view dApps as a specific wallet, aiding in issue diagnosis.

Milestone 2: User Adoption and Initial Impact

• Deliverable: Marketing and outreach strategy and its implementation
• Output: Increased awareness of Sorbet within the Cardano community, leading to increased user adoption.
• Intended Outcome: Significant user adoption among the target user base, including developers, support teams, advanced users, researchers, and auditors.

Milestone 3: Development and Implementation of Additional Features

• Deliverable: Updated version of Sorbet with new features ("Wrap a Wallet", "Inspect Traffic", and "Return Arbitrary Data or Errors")
• Output: A more robust tool that offers more detailed insights into dApp-wallet interactions and helps test corner cases.
• Intended Outcome: Enhanced user experience and troubleshooting efficiency, further adoption, and an overall improvement in dApp quality on the Cardano blockchain.

Milestone 4: Assessing Impact and Refining the Tool

• Deliverable: Detailed report on key performance metrics and user feedback
• Output: Clear understanding of Sorbet's impact and areas for improvement.
• Intended Outcome: Increased troubleshooting efficiency, enhanced dApp quality, positive user satisfaction, and a valuable educational tool for understanding dApp-wallet interactions.

Please provide a detailed budget breakdown of the proposed work and resources.

$60k USD / 200,000 ADA

Engineer (1x), 2 months, $50k

Designer (1x), 2 weeks, $5k

PM + Admin, $5k

Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

The Sundae Labs Sorbet Wallet Debugger project work will be performed by the Sundae Labs team, housed and primarily based in the US, but with team members also located in Europe and South America.

Our CTO, Pi Lanningham (AKA @Quantumplation), is an active contributor to the Cardano ecosystem. He's an advisor on many large protocols, such as ADA Handle, Liqwid, and Atrium. He's been elected to the Indigo technical working group, gave three technical talks at last year's Cardano Summit, has recently hosted two community Voltaire workshops. He contributes broadly across the Cardano open source ecosystem.

How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

Sorbet offers significant value for money for the Cardano ecosystem in several key ways:

1. Enhanced dApp Quality and User Experience: By enabling developers and support teams to troubleshoot issues more effectively, Sorbet can significantly enhance the quality of dApps on the Cardano blockchain. This, in turn, leads to improved user experience and potentially greater user adoption of dApps, thereby growing the overall Cardano ecosystem.
2. Increased Efficiency: The tool would reduce the time and resources spent on troubleshooting, thereby increasing the efficiency of support teams and developers. The ability to browse as a specific wallet and simulate various scenarios also means that developers can proactively identify and fix potential issues, further increasing efficiency.
3. Reduced Costs: By reducing the time spent on identifying and resolving issues, Sorbet can also potentially lower the overall costs associated with dApp development and support. Additionally, Sorbet’s ability to simulate various scenarios means fewer potential issues in live environments that could negatively impact users and result in reputational damage or financial loss.
4. Educational Value: Besides its primary use cases, Sorbet could serve as an educational tool for those wanting to understand dApp-wallet interactions better, making the Cardano ecosystem more accessible and encouraging innovation.
5. Boosting Confidence and Trust: By helping to ensure the quality and reliability of dApps, Sorbet can boost confidence and trust in the Cardano ecosystem, which is crucial for attracting and retaining users and developers.

Considering these benefits, the investment in Sorbet has the potential to provide substantial returns in terms of improved dApp quality, enhanced user experience, increased efficiency, reduced costs, and overall growth of the Cardano ecosystem.