FIL Builder Next Step Grants Application - Geist MicroCMS for filecoin

[debuggingfuture]

Grant Proposal: Geist MicroCMS for filecoin

Project Name:: Geist - MicroCMS for filecoin

Proposal Category: Developer and data tooling

Individual or Entity Name: Individual

Proposer: debuggingfuture (Vincent Lau)

Project Repo(s)

• https://github.com/fractaldotbox/geist-filecoin
• https://github.com/fractaldotbox/storacha-image-service
• https://github.com/fractaldotbox/geist-dapp-kit

Filecoin ecosystem affiliations:

• Lead Applicant (Vincent) is Filecoin Orbit Ambadassor of Singapore and participant of PLDG Cohort #1
• Other team members are applicant for PLDG Cohort #2

(Optional) Technical Sponsor:

Do you agree to open source all work you do on behalf of this RFP under the MIT/Apache-2 dual-license?:
Yes

1. What is your project and what problem does it solve? (max 100 words)

We proposes Geist - an open-source, self-hostable MicroCMS for Filecoin integration. The CMS will enable both technical and non-technical teams to collaborate using on-chain access criteria and a no-code editor. Teams can create structured, programmable datasets on Filecoin for website publishing and consumption by applications or AI agents.

New modular Layer-2 solutions like Akave and Storacha enable tailored, scalable solutions with enhanced programmability, supporting features like onchain data lakes and decentralized DAO authentication. We see developers need new tools and middlewares to leverage these capabilities to enable new collaboration models in web3 and integrating the broader AI ecosystems.

2. How is Filecoin used in this project?

At this project, filecoin is the destinated storage layer for content and data.

• Filecoin serve as on-chain data lake to support various integrations within the ecosystems, or provide predicable, cost-effective data storage that adapt to typical enterprise need of hot / cold achive storage via Akave.
• With the decentralized and incentivized nature, it is a particular fit for Agents to discover economical opportunities on the dataset that wasnt possible before.
• At the CMS, there wil lbe No-code editor to create structured content, similar to typical Headless CMS such as Contentful/Sanity/Strapi. This incldues file upload widgets that can directly upload files to filecoin via lighthouse/storacha/akave sdk.
• At the end-users published UI, file upload widgets culd accept end-user contribution on data. This is especially useful for datadao scenarios.
• Non-technical teams will be able to publish data onto decentrlaized storage easily and all these tools are made easy to deploy

3. How will you improve your project with this grant? What steps will you take to meet this objective?

As scope of general CMS could be large, this project aims to create a functional MVP that can better understand user need and technical feasibility, and integrates existing solution whenever possible.

The team has experimented with relevant ideas in hackathons and awarded prizes (refer to below sction), also developed building blocks during PLDG Cohort#1.

A proof of concept is developed earlier --- Storacha Image Service
is an open source mini site that support Storacha's UCAN Delegated upload flow, empower crowdsourcing data form end-users after authentication.

With this grant the team will extend

• Role based access control (RBAC) base on on-chain criteria

  • EAS attestation, token-gating conditions can be configured to generate UCAN and control content governance.

• No-code Editor for Programmable Structured, Embeddable data (Rich Text)

• Simple Deployment and Publishing

  • Support self host (as docker) and scripts to deploy to selected service such as render.com
  • Deploy structured data, static websites to filecoin and optionally cloudflare pages / Vercel

Number	Grant Deliverable	Briefly describe how you will meet deliverable objectives	Timeframe (within 3 months)
1.	No-code editor	Develop No-code editor to create structured data and upload to filecoin	Wk1-Wk4
2.	Access control with on-chain criteria	Develope Dashboard and data api to allow team to configure and collaborate with different roles base on on-chain criteria	Wk5-Wk8
3.	Deployment and Publishing	Develop Scripts and showcase to deploy and publishto various targets

4. What is the total amount of this grant request?

5. Adoption, Reach, and Growth Strategies

We're targeting content teams and DAOs at web3 that would like to leveage new capability from filecoin (as in akave), or to engage the community to co-create datasets

For early adoption, we will make use of the MicroCMS to curate some key and engaging datasets as showcase. HTTP Cat Service is on of the example we created using the current implementation.

We also aims to work with partners to create localized versions of website, so they are able to experiment the new tech stack without bottleneck at existing techstack.

We aims to create a flywheel by providing free tier which hosted sites or processed assets are water marked to attract new clients.

6. If accepted, do you agree to share monthly project updates in this Github Issue until the project described here is complete?

Yes

7. Does your proposal comply with our Community Code of Conduct?

Yes

8. Links and submissions

• If your project began at an event or hackathon, have you submitted it for relevant prizes in the ecosystem? If so, please share the event name and a link to your hackathon submission(s)
  The team has prototyped and experimented with the idea at multiple events

• ETHGlobal Singapore - Finalist

  • Geist, Trustless CMS for DAO
  • https://ethglobal.com/showcase/geist-x3fur

• ETHGlobal Bangkok - Protocol Labs Akave 2nd place

  • Tuk Tuk to the Moon, Web3 patrenon, DataDao tools for creators
  • https://ethglobal.com/showcase/tuk-tuk-to-the-moon-fwn9j

• ETHGlobal Scaling Ethereum 24 - Finalist, Filecoin Runner Up

  • Ethereum Localization Service - DataDAO to crowdsource data for localization
  • https://ethglobal.com/showcase/ethereuml10nservice-v65cs

Additional questions:

• For each team member(s), please list name, email, Github account, and role in the project.
• How did you learn about this grant type program?

We learnt about the grant from PLDG. Below are Memebers of the team.

Vincent Lau

Role: Lead Developer
Twitter: @debuggingfuture
Github: @debuggingfuture
Email: [email protected]

Justin Lau

Role: Developer
Twitter: @justintclau
Github: justin-lau
Email: [email protected]

Ken Yiu

Role: Developer
Twitter: @beanbigdev
Github: kenyiu
Email: [email protected]

Richard Zhang

Role: Developer
Twitter: @rikkusan30
Github: metalboyrick
Email: [email protected]