We are excited to announce that Chaos Labs, a cloud security and testing platform for smart contract applications, has recently joined the SES incubation program. Chaos Labs is building an agent- and scenario-based simulation platform that will increase the robustness of the Maker testing stack.

Introducing Chaos Labs

With DeFi protocols now securing tens of billions in value on mainnet, testing is crucial to help ensure the long-term sustainability and security of the blockchain ecosystem as a whole.

After identifying a significant infrastructure, security, and testing tooling gap, Omer Goldberg founded Chaos Labs. Omer, Yonatan Hayun, Yonatan Haimowitz and the founding team have a strong execution track record, previously building infrastructure software for Apple, Facebook, Instagram, Internet.org, 8200 (IDF cyber units) and Iron Dome (missile interception system).

Chaos Labs enables teams to create high-fidelity agent and scenario-based simulations on mainnet forks, offering a real-world testing environment. By providing a rich library of customizable agents and scenarios, teams can rapidly speed up development and reduce their go-to-market time, helping them stay competitive without compromising on the security of their protocol.

Additionally, Chaos Labs focuses on developer tooling and cloud infrastructure, allowing teams to move fast on stable infrastructure. The platform is currently live for protocols on the Ethereum network and later expanding to additional blockchains such as Terra, NEAR and Polygon.

The Chaos Labs Charter

MakerDAO continues to grow, and so does its protocol and developer ecosystem. As new products are shipped and new teams are welcomed into the developer ecosystem, testing and security infrastructure are critical to ensuring that Maker continues to produce software of the highest quality.

Broadly speaking, the Chaos Labs charter is as follows:

• Own Maker Testing and Security Infrastructure - build Maker-specific tools to help developers build secure and well-tested software.
• Improve the overall quality of software being developed in the Maker ecosystem. A better testing environment and infrastructure will result in:
  • A more reliable product
  • Thoroughly tested code will result in a more resilient protocol.
  • Safer and more accessible methods of collaboration, including teams working in parallel
• Make it easier for engineers to get up and running with a dev environment, thus improving the openness of the Maker developer ecosystem.

Beginning with User Research

As part of our research, we interviewed six teams in the Maker ecosystem, including SES incubation program teams.

Aside from a high-level introduction, the goal of each interview was to understand:

• The team’s purpose and mission as an incubation team or independent core unit
• Workflow and development environment
• Pain points and areas of friction when developing