Eth R&D Archive Tracker

Track discussions from the Ethereum R&D Discord Archive and surface important research conversations relevant to Lodestar development.

Overview

The archive repo contains daily JSON exports of every Eth R&D Discord channel. Updated hourly by EF DevOps. Each channel is a directory with YYYY-MM-DD.json files containing messages.

Related Skills

• skills/deep-research/SKILL.md — use when an archive thread needs full analysis/design synthesis (not just monitoring summary).
• skills/web-scraping/SKILL.md — use to fetch linked external sources (spec posts, blogs, docs) when web_fetch is blocked/incomplete.

Repo Location

• Local clone: ~/ethereum-repos/eth-rnd-archive
• Remote: https://github.com/ethereum/eth-rnd-archive

Tracked Channels

Configured in config.json (this skill directory). Only these channels are monitored.

Core Research

• epbs — ePBS design discussions
• consensus-dev — CL protocol development
• allcoredevs — cross-client coordination
• execution-dev — EL protocol development
• specifications — spec discussions

Features & Topics

• inclusion-lists — IL design
• shorter-slot-times — slot time reduction research
• l1-zkevm — CK EVM / L1 zkEVM
• l1-zkevm-protocol — CK EVM protocol details (EIP-8025)
• data-availability-sampling — DAS / PeerDAS
• apis — Beacon/Engine API discussions

Infrastructure

• payload-builders — MEV/PBS/builder discussions

Networking & Testing

• networking — general networking
• libp2p — libp2p protocol
• peerdas-testing — PeerDAS test coordination
• peerdas-devnet-alerts — PeerDAS devnet status
• client-development — client team discussions

Thread Support

Threads are stored in _threads/ subdirectories within each channel:

epbs/_threads/make it two clients/2026-02-23.json
l1-zkevm/_threads/Proof orchestration/2026-02-23.json

Thread messages have "parent": "<thread name>" set. The check script scans these automatically.

Message Format

{
  "author": "username",
  "category": "Discord category",
  "parent": "thread parent (empty if top-level)",
  "content": "message text",
  "created_at": "ISO8601 timestamp",
  "attachments": [...]
}

How to Check for Updates

Script: check-updates.sh

Located in this skill directory. Run it to:

1. git pull the archive repo
2. Compare current HEAD against last-checked commit (stored in state.json)
3. Extract new/modified files from tracked channels only
4. Output new messages as JSON for summarization

Usage

# Check for new messages (outputs JSON to stdout)
bash skills/eth-rnd-archive/check-updates.sh

# Check for new messages from specific date
bash skills/eth-rnd-archive/check-updates.sh 2026-02-25

Workflow

Hourly Check (via cron)

1. Run check-updates.sh
2. If new messages found in tracked channels:
   • Summarize key discussions per channel
   • Log to /home/openclaw/.openclaw/workspace/memory/eth-rnd-archive-notes/YYYY-MM-DD.md
   • If something critical (spec changes, breaking decisions, action items for Lodestar): alert Nico immediately
3. If no new messages: no action

Daily Digest (8 AM CET via cron)

1. Read all notes from the past 24h (/home/openclaw/.openclaw/workspace/memory/eth-rnd-archive-notes/)
2. Create a concise digest:
   • Key decisions made across channels
   • Action items for Lodestar
   • Interesting discussions worth following up
   • Notable participants (who's driving which topics)
3. Send digest to Nico via Telegram

What to Flag as Critical (immediate alert)

• Spec changes affecting Lodestar implementation
• Breaking API changes
• Devnet failures or coordination calls
• Direct mentions of Lodestar or ChainSafe
• Deadlines or action items assigned to CL teams
• Major design pivots in ePBS, PeerDAS, or inclusion lists

State Tracking

state.json in this skill directory:

{
  "lastCommit": "<commit hash>",
  "lastCheck": "<ISO timestamp>",
  "lastDigest": "<ISO timestamp>"
}

Adding/Removing Channels

Edit config.json in this skill directory. Format:

{
  "channels": ["epbs", "consensus-dev", ...],
  "digestTime": "07:00",
  "checkIntervalMinutes": 60
}

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Self-Maintenance

If any commands, file paths, URLs, or configurations in this skill are outdated or no longer work, update this SKILL.md with the correct information after completing your current task. Skills should stay accurate and self-healing — fix what you find broken.