Building `agd` Section is Unproductive/Useless

[amessbee]

There is Building agd section on integration/chain-integration page that points to Getting Started but there is no real information on building agd on any of these pages (or any other docs page?). At the least, we can add something like this Ref: SimplyStaking github

cd ~
node --version # 16.17.0 or higher
sudo npm install --global yarn
git clone https://github.com/agoric/agoric-sdk
cd agoric-sdk
git checkout 088b0abf214839326958b9c1109b2d50136636e4
yarn install
yarn build
yarn link-cli ~/bin/agoric
cd packages/cosmic-swingset && make
echo "export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin" >> ~/.profile
source ~/.profile
agoric --version
agd version

Ref: packaging agd story.

[dckc]

Pointing to agoric-sdk software releases is probably the best bet; that's what we do in Syncing Up on Mainnet, since we actively maintain those releases.

In particular:

node --version # 16.17.0 or higher

Node 16 is no longer LTS.

sudo npm install --global yarn

sudo npm install X means "run any software from npm as root on my machine". I don't think we want to recommend that.

git clone https://github.com/agoric/agoric-sdk cd agoric-sdk git checkout 088b0abf214839326958b9c1109b2d50136636e4

That's an Apr 2023 version.

[dckc]

cosmic-swingset README could use some love

cd packages/cosmic-swingset && make

That's one of the more relevant parts of the story. Ideally, we could give that as a short gloss and point people to the surrounding @agoric/cosmic-swingset package docs. But the README there documents a pixel demo from ~2018.

[dckc]

Cosmos 0.45 -> 0.46

Speaking of the chain-integration page, it still talks about cosmos sdk 0.45 all over the place; for example:

The Agoric Network currently uses cosmos-sdk v0.45.

But the current Release agoric-upgrade-16 · Agoric/agoric-sdk notes

cosmos-sdk v0.46.16

[dckc]

Use install docs from inter bidding?

On Bidding for Liquidated Collateral | Inter Protocol User & System Docs we have these instructions, which someone such as @otoole-brendan checks for each release:

git clone https://github.com/Agoric/agoric-sdk
cd agoric-sdk
SKIP_DOWNLOAD=false ./bin/agd build
export PATH=$PWD/bin:$PATH

That gets them whatever version of the code is on master at the time, which is a bit iffy.

@mhofman has suggested that we should recommend the community-dev branch for this sort of thing.

[mhofman]

@mhofman has suggested that we should recommend the community-dev branch for this sort of thing.

This assumes community-dev gets updated as part of the release process, which it hasn't lately

we have these instructions

Beside the last of branch, these are the best instruction, and match closely what we tell validators to do in release notes.