Ecosystem dependencies tracking for Hermes development

[adizere]

Context

This discussion represents a live document we'll be using to track the four major dependencies of Hermes. The dependencies are: the Hub (i.e., gaia) , the Cosmos-SDK, the IBC-Go module, and Tendermint-Go. Contributions or suggestions are welcome.

How to read the table below

• The table provides expectations on when a certain Cosmos feature is expected to be released.
• A feature is not relevant (i.e., Hermes need not support it) until it is deployed in a major IBC-enabled network. Currently, we track the Cosmos Hub.
  • In principle, we only need to track the Hub's major versions (v6.x, v7, v8, etc).
• The upcoming release that Hermes developers should care about is marked with a "→" in the Hub Upgrade column.

Dependencies table

Hub Upgrade	Hub Upgrade Time	Hub Binary (Gaia) Version	Cosmos-SDK Version	IBC-Go Version	Tendermint-Go Version
Stargate	~ Spring 2021	v4.x	v0.42.*	-	v0.34.8+
Delta	~ July 2021	v5.x	v0.42.*	-	v0.34.11+
Vega	~ Dec 2021	v6.x	v0.44.*	v2.*	v0.34.12+
Theta	~ April 2022	v7.x	v0.45.*	v3.*	v0.34.14+
→Rho	Q2 2022 expected	v8.x	v0.46.*	v5.*	v0.34.*
Lambda	Q3 2022 expected	v9.x	??	??	??
Epsilon	Q4 2022 expected	v10.x	??	??	??
Gamma	Q1 2023 expected	v11.x	??	??	??

Observations & References:

• Cosmos SDK v0.43 is discontinued, hence it doesn't appear in any Gaia build.

• Cosmos SDK v0.45.1 dependency list: https://github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/blob/2646b474c7beb0c93d4fafd395ef345f41afc251/go.mod#L49

• Gaiad v7.0.0 dependency list: https://github.com/cosmos/gaia/blob/79fcf71689358b6212ae91f41070de9669421cf5/go.mod#L6

• Cosmos Hub upgrades roadmap: https://github.com/cosmos/gaia/blob/main/docs/roadmap/cosmos-hub-roadmap-2.0.md#vega-upgrade-completed-december-14-2021

  • Hub history: https://github.com/cosmos/gaia/tree/main/docs/roadmap#cosmos-hub-history

• IBC-go roadmap: https://github.com/cosmos/ibc-go/blob/main/docs/roadmap/roadmap.md

• IBC-go version matrix: https://github.com/cosmos/ibc-go/blob/624c5f79af61e037ad4e35553eb66e3a0e6c9a7d/RELEASES.md?plain=1#L100-L113