Dapp-runner and Dapp-manager: A Breakdown of the Latest Updates

The Golem team has recently rolled out some changes on dapp-runner and dapp-manager, the tools that simplify running and managing decentralized applications. In this blog post, we'll break down the latest updates:

🔸 GAOM API: The Golem Application Object Model API (GAOM API) is one of the most significant changes in the recent upgrade. It allows external applications, including dapp-manager, to query the internal state of dapp-runner and the application it’s running. With this API, developers can get detailed information about payloads, networks, and service instances.

🔸 Dynamically Generated Manifests: The team has also introduced dynamically generated manifests for apps that don’t require manifest signatures. In such cases, e.g., when an app only needs to access external network locations that are defined within the providers’ whitelists, the process can be streamlined by omitting the need to prepare a manifest and thus making it even more accessible for developers who need to set up their dapps quickly.

🔸 Manifest Verification Support: While dynamical manifest generation is a powerful feature, they've added manifest verification support. This additional validation checks compliance with the manifest's schema, evaluates any manifest’s validity period and confirms that the signature matches the contents (if used). Thanks to the validation, developers are warned much earlier that their apps cannot function properly.

The Golem team extended the functionality of dapp-manager to support and use the new dapp-runner features. As a result, the manager received a new feature - the dapp-manager inspect command. This command presents the GAOM data in a human-readable form, making it easier for developers to debug and troubleshoot any issues. To use the inspect command, developers need to launch apps with the API enabled (using the -api-port <port number> flag).

In conclusion, the latest upgrade includes some significant changes that will make the development of decentralized applications even more accessible and efficient. With the introduction of the GAOM API, dynamically generated manifests, manifest verification support, and the dapp-manager inspect command, developers now have more tools to create and manage their dapps. It's exciting to see the constant evolution, and we look forward to seeing what the future holds for decentralized applications.

You will find the exact instructions, along with examples, on our GitHub: dapp-manager, dapp-runner.

Dapp-manager - Installation tutorial

Dapp-runner - Installation tutorial