Kurtosis Orbit: Final Report

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Kurtosis-Orbit – Final Report

Name of your project: Kurtosis-Orbit

Period: 15 April 2025 - 15 June 2025

1. Overview

Kurtosis-Orbit is a comprehensive deployment tool that enables developers to spin up complete Arbitrum Orbit rollup environments with a single command. Built on top of Kurtosis, it provides a simple, reproducible way to deploy L2 chains for development, testing, and experimentation.

This grant supported the development of:

  • One-command Orbit deployment - Deploy a complete Arbitrum Orbit stack including L1, L2, bridge, and explorer
  • Pre-funded development accounts - Ready-to-use accounts with ETH on both L1 and L2
  • Comprehensive documentation - Getting started guides, architecture docs, and troubleshooting resources
  • Developer helper scripts - Tools for contract deployment, bridging, and balance checking

This report summarizes the successful completion of all project milestones, highlighting core technical deliveries.

  • Milestones: 3/3 Completed

Demo Vides

2. Core Deliverables and Technical Milestones

The project successfully delivered a complete Arbitrum Orbit deployment package with the following components:

2.1 Deployment Infrastructure

Kurtosis-Orbit orchestrates a 6-phase deployment process:

Phase Component Description
1 Ethereum L1 Local Geth + Lighthouse via ethereum-package
2 Rollup Contracts Arbitrum Orbit contracts deployed on L1
3 Nitro Nodes Sequencer + Validator nodes with feed system
4 Token Bridge L1 ↔ L2 asset transfer infrastructure
5 L2 Funding Automated bridging and account funding
6 Explorer Blockscout instance for transaction monitoring

2.2 Technical Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                     Docker Containers                       │
│                                                             │
│  ┌─────────────┐  ┌──────────────┐  ┌─────────────────┐     │
│  │   Geth L1   │  │ Orbit Rollup │  │ Orbit Sequencer │     │
│  │  (Ethereum) │  │  Contracts   │  │   (Nitro Node)  │     │
│  └─────────────┘  └──────────────┘  └─────────────────┘     │
│                                                             │
│  ┌─────────────┐  ┌──────────────┐  ┌─────────────────┐     │
│  │  Validator  │  │ Token Bridge │  │   Blockscout    │     │
│  │(Nitro Node) │  │  Contracts   │  │   (Explorer)    │     │
│  └─────────────┘  └──────────────┘  └─────────────────┘     │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

2.3 Starlark Module System

The project consists of 11 Starlark modules providing modular, maintainable infrastructure code:

Module Purpose
main.star Entry point, orchestrates all phases
config.star Configuration management and validation
ethereum.star L1 deployment via ethereum-package
rollup.star Orbit contract deployment
nitro.star Sequencer and validator deployment
tokenbridge.star Bridge contract deployment
funding.star L2 account funding via bridging
explorer.star Blockscout deployment
utils.star Helper functions and display formatting
analytics.star Privacy-first usage tracking
service_patterns.star Common deployment patterns

2.4 Developer Tools & Scripts

# Quick deployment
kurtosis run github.com/justmert/kurtosis-orbit

# Helper scripts included
npm run check-balances    # Check L1/L2 balances
npm run deploy-contract   # Deploy test contracts
npm run bridge-eth        # Bridge ETH L1 → L2
npm run generate-accounts # Generate new dev accounts

3. Developer Adoption & Documentation

3.1 Comprehensive Documentation

The project delivered extensive documentation hosted at here.

3.2 Configuration Flexibility

Developers can customize deployments via YAML configuration:

orbit_config:
  chain_name: "MyCustomChain"
  chain_id: 555666
  rollup_mode: true
  enable_explorer: true
  enable_bridge: true
  validator_count: 1
  challenge_period_blocks: 20

3.3 Usage

Real usage is higher than shown because tracking started months after release and misses CLI-based runs.

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4. Impact

Problem solved: Setting up a local Orbit environment previously required hours of manual L1/L2 configuration, contract deployment, and node setup. Kurtosis-Orbit reduces this to a single command.

Ecosystem value:

  • Lowers barrier to entry for Orbit chain development
  • Provides reproducible, standardized dev environments
  • Serves as reference implementation for Orbit deployment architecture

6. Open Source Release

All components are released as open source under Apache License 2.0:

Thanks for your support!

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