[textual]: Allow offline signing

[facundomedica]

Summary

Signmode textual must be able to sign offline.

Problem Definition

Sign mode textual requires a GRPC connection or a bank keeper to query a denom's metadata in order to display it correctly; none of which will/should be available if --offline is being passed.

Proposal

Given that denoms metadata is something that doesn't change often, we can allow the signer to provide the denom metadata when doing an offline signature. This can be done by storing the response of x/bank's DenomsMetadata in a json and then passing that to the CLI through a flag.

[tac0turtle]

why is this required? its not required with the current signing methods

[tac0turtle]

thinking through the use cases of offline signing i can only think multisig but even then youcould use a node. As long as there is a way to sign and not broadcast at the same time i think its chill

[raynaudoe]

What do guys think of doing the following: create a new CoinMetadataQueryFunction in x/auth/tx/config/config.go that receives a DenomsMetadata and returns the metadata properly formatted for the desired denom? Something like:

func NewCachedCoinMetadataQueryFn(m DenomsMetadata) textual.CoinMetadataQueryFn

Then at flags processing time the function can be properly injected

[raynaudoe]

ok, so regarding the toml config to contain DenomsMetadata, I see that I can directly modify the DefaultClientConfigTemplate to include a placeholder for the metadata, alongside with some other changes in config.go. But I also noticed that for example here:

cosmos-sdk/simapp/simd/cmd/config.go

Lines 30 to 39 in 4b8be25

	func initClientConfig() (string, interface{}) {
	type GasConfig struct {
	GasAdjustment float64 `mapstructure:"gas-adjustment"`
	}
	type CustomClientConfig struct {
	clientconfig.Config `mapstructure:",squash"`
	GasConfig GasConfig `mapstructure:"gas"`
	}

the Config struct is being composed to include GasConfig struct which is not present in the DefaultClientConfigTemplate.

I think that modifying the default toml and Config would be a cleaner way to include denoms metadata (maybe backwards compatibilities issues?).... but I'm not sure since the GasConfig inclusion is not done in that way 🤔

[julienrbrt]

but I'm not sure since the GasConfig inclusion is not done in that way

This is done as an example on how chains can extend themselves the client.toml, like they can do for the app.toml. As you can see the logic is in simapp, so it is chain specific.

If we go the toml way, it should be standard for all chains, so it should indeed be added in the default template.

[julienrbrt]

What's the status on this?
I don't see any linked PR, but status says 'Waiting / In review'?

cc @raynaudoe

[raynaudoe]

What's the status on this? I don't see any linked PR, but status says 'Waiting / In review'?

cc @raynaudoe

There was no consensus on which data should be available for offline signing besides denoms.
AFAIK this issue remains on hold waiting for the signmode team to agree upon this.

[tac0turtle]

closing as wont fix