tracking issue for meta transactions

[jakmeier]

Meta Transactions

• get NEP approved NEP-366: Meta transactions NEPs#366
• merge initial draft to nearcore feat: draft implementation of NEP-366 (fork) #8385 (fork of feat: draft implementation of NEP-366 #7497)
• implement rosetta rpc adapter for delegate action #8469
• documentation for nearcore developers doc: meta transactions #8257
• Indexer/indexer primitive changes (part of updated enums, should not require specific changes)
• release a new near-primitives version with delegate actions to crates.io

Protocol team input required

• Stabilization PR (feat: stabilize meta transactions NEP-366 #8601)
• Change signed delegate action format to avoid confusing it with other things that might be signed by an account key #8271
• add integration tests for meta transactions #8467
• meta-tx gas cost estimation #8114
• meta tx changes the changes the max receipt chain length #8574
• meta tx acceptance by a node depends on the protocol version #8468

[jakmeier]

@firatNEAR I created this issue and intend to use it to track work that is needed until we can stabilize meta transactions on a protocol level. We create a tracking issues for work on nearcore to display progress publicly. This usually starts small like now and then we just keep updating the issue as more details come in. So in theory, you should be able to check this issue and always know the current progress on meta-tx in an instant.

I know this is only a fraction of the work needed to make meta transactions useful. If you think it would make sense to track remaining integration work in this same issue, please feel free to update the description anytime and add more tasks.

Also, if necessary, we could sync the issue to Jira but I like to keep the source of truth in a public document.

[fadeevab]

@jakmeier seems like, there should be one additional task about upgrading near-api-jswith a method for creating signed Delegated actions.

[jakmeier]

@jakmeier seems like, there should be one additional task about upgrading near-api-jswith a method for creating signed Delegated actions.

That's definitely a task to be done, but since it's outside nearcore and not done by the protocol team, I am undecided if we should track it here or not. @firatNEAR what do you think?

[firatNEAR]

I think we should track the issues around tooling for meta transactions in their respective repositories to avoid confusion.

[jakmeier]

Following a discussion with @bowenwang1996 about who will work on what, I will start working on all the remaining issues to stabilize meta transactions listed here. Except for the RPC adapter, which shouldn't block stabilization for nearcore.

[jakmeier]

Random notes about meta transactions that were not obvious to me but became clear while working with them more closely:

• Because of the 30% contract reward, the contract owner receives up to 30% of the tokens that the relayer spends on the meta transaction. If the user calls a function call on their own contract, they will thereby make a profit. One more thing for relayers to be aware of, if they want to offer their service for free.
• Meta transactions can be used with function access keys. In that case, they bypasses the allowance checks on these keys because the transaction is already paid for by the relayer. It also doesn't update the allowance.
• Another consequence of the previous point: You can no longer limit the maximum gas a function access key is allowed to use. (Example: Even if you have an access key with an allowance of 0.001N ~ 10Tgas, you can still use 300Tgas in a function call with that key, if submitted through a meta transaction. Before meta transaction, this would not have been possible and could have been used to limit what the user can do with the key.)

[jakmeier]

Meta transactions are now ready to be included in a testnet release candidate.

I finished all open work items from my side.
The remaining work is on other teams and other code bases.

In this code base, only the Rosetta RPC is left as a TODO, which the integration team will take care of.
I will keep this issue open until that is done as well.