Polkadot Deployment Portal: April Update
Summary
As promised, we’ll be providing monthly updates to keep the community up to date on the latest regarding the Polkadot Deployment Portal. If you’ve not read the previous edition, which goes into detail about how the PDP works and the problems it solves, then check it out here.
Recap
In the previous update, we dove deeper into the problem that Polkadot was facing, specifically looking at the inaccessibility and complexity of deploying to Polkadot. We outlined why DevX is a priority and should continue to be a path to explore and how a better DevX and deployment solutions will allow our tech to truly get the recognition it deserves.
We proposed a solution, a way to allow anyone to deploy a rollup within a simple click and showcased the progress of the PDP team throughout the last 6 months, diving deep into the portal [UI] and the Backend [Resource orchestration] and explaining the capabilities of the service.
The team also sent out a PSA, calling all those willing to become part of the PDP beta testing programme, where we’re granting a small selection of the external ecosystem the opportunity to test the PDP, provide feedback and deploy using the services provided by the tool.
So, what’s the latest?
PDP x POP CLI Integration
The PDP and POP-CLI teams recently announced their recent collaboration, allowing the PDP to utilize POP-CLI’s local rollup-building capabilities. Builders can now,
- Leverage pre-built templates already in Pop CLI through the PDP
- Deploy directly from the CLI and switch over to the PDP UI for simple and easy infra management
- Spin up rollup infrastructure instantly, with no complex setup required
ParaRegistration Proxy implementation
The PDP team proposed, created and implemented a new proxy type called ‘ParaRegistration’ Proxy which allows the PDP to really abstract the complexity away from the builders. The new proxy type allows for,
- Reserving a ParaID
- Registering a Parachain
- Removing a proxy
The new flow of the proxy goes as follows;
Beta testing begins
With development progressing smoothly, the PDP team is preparing to onboard the first cohort of external builders to be the first to trial and test the portal.
Our engineers are doing the final checks ahead of onboarding, where we’re already seeing live block production in Westend.
The number of builders who wanted to test the PDP has exceeded our expectations, with many of you keen and eager to get involved and contribute. If you’ve previously signed up to be a beta tester, then there’s no need to register again.
Final Call!
The final call for beta testers is here, if you’ve not previously signed up and want to be the first to deploy a rollup using the new PDP portal, then sign up here.
UX & User Journey improvements
Both UX & DevX will always be a priority for the PDP, ensuring simplicity and abstracting needless mental workload from builders. In the last month, the team worked on implementing a multitude of improvements which aimed to drastically improve the entire UX of the PDP.
Improved Rollup deployment flow
A recent change to the deployment flow was introduced, now allowing the flow to be asynchronous.
- Once a user confirms they’re ready to sign and pay, a provisional resource on the backend is created.
- Once signed, the user is redirected to the resource detail page and the loading terminal is shown.
- The user can then follow their transaction progress and the result, providing they’ve signed through an extension or mobile wallet.
- Once the funds have arrived, the deployment is triggered.
- In case the transaction was unsuccessful we show the user error details
- In the future, the user will be able to retry the transaction from the deployment detail.
- A UI option for this will be added, currently the user can just manually send the amount and the deployment will be triggered.
Mobile Wallet Support
The team worked towards adding support for any and all mobile wallets that have Wallet Connect integrated, now allowing anyone to fund their PDP account through Polkadot dApps such as SubWallet & Nova Wallet.
Multisigniture Support
The PDP team worked towards multi-signiture support, a previous DevX hurdle, now crossed. A new rollup creation flow for Multisigs using Multix is being introduced, including the support for other multi-sig wallets via manual transfers.
Additional Rollup UX improvements
On the rollup deployment progress page, we have now integrated the PDP with the Subscan API to get the result of a transaction, allowing us to show the result of said transaction in real time.
PDP Showcased at the London Polkadot x EasyA Hackathon
The team presented at the iconic EasyA x Polkadot Hackathon in London earlier this month, where the team showcased ‘The Future of deploying on Polkadot’ to a jam packed room of aspiring developers in the heart of London.
What have we achieved?
Just over 6 months ago, the team showcased the MVP and vision of the project, now 6 months later, we’re ready to onboard our first testers to beta test a true, 1 click deployment solution.
At the current stage, we’re starting the process of External Testing and Domain Migration, where the PDP is currently in discussions with W3F to acquire a subdomain of Polkadot.com.
Conclusion
Overall, April was a successful month for the PDP team, with many improvements, fixes, talks all happening in parallel. As someone lucky enough to be close to the heart of the development, it’s clear that the team has never been more excited to bring this product to life. That’s it for this month’s update, we hope by the time I’m drafting May’s forum update, we’ll have already been deep into the external user testing.
If you’ve got any questions or want to learn more about the product, please feel free to get in touch.
PDP Telegram
Want to chat 1-1?
Email: Remy@Parity.io
TG: @Remy_LeBerre
Check out the PDP X account too! 
https://x.com/PolkadotDeploy
A thank you to the team,
This post was a collaborative effort from the Parity PDP, Product Strategy and Data teams, huge kudos to all who contributed their time between development to help write this article, provide updates and add content to this April monthly update.