As of Jan. 15, 2024, this repo is archived. The underlying codebase for how to make a DAO has greatly changed due to the changing nature of many of the packages this codebase used, and I don't have time to continue to maintain it.

DAO Template

This has been updated to work with Sepolia over Goerli

You can also see the python/brownie version of this here.

About

How to DAO

This repo is meant to give you all the knowledge you need to start a DAO and do governance. Since what's the point of a DAO if you can't make any decisions! There are 2 main kinds of doing governance.

Feature On-Chain Governance Hybrid Governance
Gas Costs More Expensive Cheaper
Components Just the blockchain An oracle or trusted multisig

A typical on-chain governance structure might look like:

  • ERC20 based voting happens on a project like Tally, but could hypothetically be done by users manually calling the vote functions.
  • Anyone can execute a proposal once it has passed Examples Compound

On-chain governance can be much more expensive, but involves fewer parts, and the tooling is still being developed.

A typical hybrid governance with an oracle might look like:

  • ERC20 based voting happens on a project like Snapshot
  • An oracle like Chainlink is used to retreive and execute the answers in a decentralized manner. (hint hint, someone should build this. )

A typical hybrid governance with a trusted multisig might looks like:

Hybrid governance is much cheaper, just as secure, but the tooling is still being developed.

Tools:

No Code Tools

The following have tools to help you start a DAO without having to deploy contracts yourself.

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Getting Started

Work with this repo in the browser (optional)

Open in Gitpod

It's recommended that you've gone through the hardhat getting started documentation before proceeding here.

Requirements

  • git
    • You'll know you did it right if you can run git --version and you see a response like git version x.x.x
  • Nodejs
    • You'll know you've installed nodejs right if you can run:
      • node --versionand get an ouput like: vx.x.x
  • Yarn instead of npm
    • You'll know you've installed yarn right if you can run:
      • yarn --version And get an output like: x.x.x
      • You might need to install it with npm

Installation

  1. Clone this repo:
git clone https://github.com/PatrickAlphaC/dao-template
cd dao-template
  1. Install dependencies
yarn

or

npm i 
  1. Run the test suite (which also has all the functionality)
yarn hardhat test

or

npx hardhat test

If you want to deploy to a testnet: 4. Add a .env file with the same contents of .env.example, but replaced with your variables. WARNING WARNING WARNING

DO NOT PUSH YOUR PRIVATE_KEY TO GITHUB

Usage

On-Chain Governance Example

Here is the rundown of what the test suite does.

  1. We will deploy an ERC20 token that we will use to govern our DAO.
  2. We will deploy a Timelock contract that we will use to give a buffer between executing proposals.
    1. Note: The timelock is the contract that will handle all the money, ownerships, etc
  3. We will deploy our Governence contract
    1. Note: The Governance contract is in charge of proposals and such, but the Timelock executes!
  4. We will deploy a simple Box contract, which will be owned by our governance process! (aka, our timelock contract).
  5. We will propose a new value to be added to our Box contract.
  6. We will then vote on that proposal.
  7. We will then queue the proposal to be executed.
  8. Then, we will execute it!

Additionally, you can do it all manually on your own local network like so:

  1. Setup local blockchain
yarn hardhat node
  1. Propose a new value to be added to our Box contract

In a second terminal (leave your blockchain running)

yarn hardhat run scripts/propose.ts --network localhost
  1. Vote on that proposal
yarn hardhat run scripts/vote.ts --network localhost
  1. Queue & Execute proposal!
yarn hardhat run scripts/queue-and-execute.ts --network localhost

You can also use the Openzeppelin contract wizard to get other contracts to work with variations of this governance contract.

Off-Chain governance Example

This sectoin is still being developed.

Deploy your ERC20 and make proposals in snapshot.

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Roadmap

  • [] Add Upgradeability examples with the UUPS proxy pattern
  • [] Add Chainlink Oracle Integration with Snapsafe example

See the open issues for a full list of proposed features (and known issues).

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Contributing

Contributions are what make the open source community such an amazing place to learn, inspire, and create. Any contributions you make are greatly appreciated.

If you have a suggestion that would make this better, please fork the repo and create a pull request. You can also simply open an issue with the tag "enhancement". Don't forget to give the project a star! Thanks again!

  1. Fork the Project
  2. Create your Feature Branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
  3. Commit your Changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
  4. Push to the Branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
  5. Open a Pull Request

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License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE.txt for more information.

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Contact

Hardhat - @HardhatHQ Patrick Collins - @patrickalphac

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Acknowledgments

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You can check out the openzeppelin javascript tests for a full suite of an example of what is possible.