2019 Q4 Hyperledger Aries

Owned by Sam Curren
Last updated: Jan 16, 2020 by Angelo de Caro

Project

Hyperledger Aries

Project Health

Aries is young but growing well. With initial transition efforts behind us, the focus has been on growing language support and designing the future of the Aries shared libraries. Efforts are also underway to aid development teams in the development of compatible projects.

Questions/Issues for the TSC

There are no issues for the TSC at this time.

Releases

September 2019:

Aries Cloudagent Python 0.3.2
  • Improved Credential and Presentation protocols
Aries Cloudagent Python 0.3.3
  • RFC Alignment
  • Performance Improvement
  • etc.

October 2019:   

Aries Cloudagent Python 0.3.4
  • Credential Protocol Improvement
  • Improved Base 64 and Decorator Handling

November 2019:

Aries Cloudagent Python 0.3.5
  • Caching
  • Timing and Statistics
Aries Framework Go 0.1.0
  • Initial Release

Overall Activity in the Past Quarter

General

  • Continued development of Protocol Test Suite
  • Development of the Aries Toolbox, a utility for developers and sysadmins
  • Expanded language library support.
  • Held an In-person event “Aries Connectathon” in December to accelerate conversations surrounding interoperability and shared code efforts. Attended by about 50 people, representing most of the parties actively involved in Hyperledger Aries work.
  • Coordination with Decentralized Identity Foundation regarding the DIDComm cross-community standardization effort.

Current Plans

General
  • Interop Profiles: We have begun the development of Interoperability Profiles, which will provide a fixed, schedule friendly target for development. This will make interoperability easier by reducing the need to code to moving design targets.
  • Credential Exchange Standards: We will finalize the current version of the Credential Exchange Standards and begin discussion on the next versions. This will allow a fixed target for development while removing the development stress from the standards discussions.
  • Agent Tools and Testing: The Aries Protocol Test Suite exists already, but with minimal support for the number of protocols currently in several of the adopted codebases. Expansion of these tests will facilitate interoperability between disparate projects.
  • Participate in DIF DIDComm standardization efforts: The Decentralized Identity Foundation is establishing a working group to focus on the development and adoption of DID Communication Protocols (DIDComm) in the larger community. We will represent the continued interest of the Aries community in those efforts.
  • Mobile libraries and codebases: The Aries community has several maturing enterprise agent codebases, but less support in open source codebases for mobile agents. We will work to improve these codebases and add support for newer protocols.

Maintainer Diversity

As an effort to increase collaboration, we have been highlighting ongoing efforts and releases during our main weekly calls. 

Interoperability efforts have led to increased contributions from members outside the main teams for each project. Conversations and commitments at the recently held Connectathon event should lead to even more similar contributions over the next few months.

Contributor Diversity

The bi-weekly US Morning call that we established last quarter has been well attended and will continue. 

We will prepare to present Aries progress at the Hyperledger Global Forum in the spring and help attract additional contributors to the project.

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