Governance Frontend

The interface allows users to create new governance proposals by interacting with the protocol's smart contracts. Key features include:

• Template-based forms for standard proposal types (e.g., treasury spend, parameter change).
• On-chain submission where proposals are stored as transactions.
• Discovery feeds to browse active, pending, and historical proposals with filters and search.
• Example: Snapshot's interface for creating off-chain signaling proposals.

This component presents the voting options and records user votes. It typically supports:

• Weighted voting (e.g., one-token-one-vote, quadratic voting).
• Delegated voting where users can delegate their voting power to representatives.
• Live vote tracking with real-time tallies and visualizations.
• Transaction execution to cast the vote on-chain (e.g., via MetaMask) or off-chain (e.g., via signed messages).

A critical feature for managing the DAO's assets, providing transparency and control.

• Balance overview of native tokens and other assets (e.g., stablecoins, NFTs) held in the treasury.
• Transaction history of all inflows and outflows.
• Multi-signature wallet integration for executing approved proposals that move funds.
• Example: The Aragon client provides a detailed view of an organization's holdings and transactions.

Frontends facilitate vote delegation, a core mechanism for scalable governance.

• Delegate directories to browse and select representatives based on voting history or statements.
• Reputation metrics showing a delegate's participation rate and voting alignment.
• Easy delegation flows to assign voting power without transferring asset custody.
• Example: Compound Governance frontend prominently features a delegate explorer and one-click delegation.

Transforms raw blockchain data into actionable insights for voters.

• Voter turnout statistics and historical participation trends.
• Proposal success rates and execution status.
• Token holder distribution charts (e.g., Nansen, Dune Analytics integrations).
• Gas cost estimates for submitting votes or proposals to inform users.

The secure gateway for user authentication and transaction signing.

• Multi-wallet support (e.g., MetaMask, WalletConnect, Coinbase Wallet).
• Network verification to ensure users are on the correct blockchain.
• Transaction simulation to preview outcomes before signing.
• Security best practices like clear warnings for high-stakes actions (e.g., large treasury transfers).

A governance frontend abstracts the complexity of interacting directly with on-chain governance contracts. Its primary functions are:

• Proposal Creation: Guides users through submitting a formal on-chain proposal, often requiring a proposal deposit.
• Voting Interface: Displays active proposals, allows users to connect their wallet, and casts votes using their governance tokens.
• Delegation Management: Enables users to delegate their voting power to another address or manage delegations from others.
• Results & Execution: Shows real-time voting tallies and, upon successful passage, provides a button to execute the proposal, triggering the encoded on-chain actions.

These frontends are typically built as web applications that interact with several core systems:

• Smart Contract ABI/Addresses: Integrates with the specific governance contract (e.g., Governor Bravo, OZ Governor).
• Blockchain RPC Provider: Connects to a node to read state and submit transactions.
• IPFS/Snapshot: Often uses IPFS to store large proposal metadata (description, discussion links) off-chain. Some use Snapshot for gasless, off-chain signaling votes.
• Wallet Integration: Supports connectors like MetaMask, WalletConnect, and Coinbase Wallet for authentication and transaction signing.

While convenient, frontends are a centralization and security vector. Users must trust:

• Frontend Integrity: The hosted website could be malicious or serve corrupted proposal data. IPFS hashes and verifiable on-chain data are mitigations.
• Proposal Encoding: The frontend correctly encodes the intended on-chain actions (e.g., parameter changes, treasury transfers). Audits and community review are critical.
• Censorship Resistance: A centralized host could be taken down. Decentralized frontend hosting (e.g., on IPFS or Arweave) and ENS+IPFS setups improve resilience.

Adherence to common standards allows for reusable tooling and frontends.

• EIP-712: Standard for structured data signing, used for secure off-chain votes in Snapshot.
• Governor Standards: OpenZeppelin's Governor contracts provide a common interface that frontends like Tally can universally support.
• Cross-Chain Governance: Frontends for multichain DAOs (e.g., across Ethereum L2s) must aggregate proposals and votes from multiple networks, often using bridges and message-passing layers.

The frontend is the final step in a broader governance process. It is preceded by:

• Governance Forums (e.g., Discourse, Commonwealth): For Request for Comments (RFC) and temperature checks.
• Social Consensus: Discussion on Twitter, Discord, and Telegram to gauge community sentiment.
• On-Chain vs. Off-Chain: Many DAOs use Snapshot for signaling (off-chain) before a binding on-chain vote, with the frontend reflecting both stages.

Most frontends are hosted on centralized services like AWS, Cloudflare, or Vercel. This creates single points of failure:

• The hosting provider can take the site offline.
• The team's account can be compromised.
• Geographic censorship can block access.
• Mitigation: Use IPFS or Arweave for decentralized, immutable hosting to ensure persistent availability.

Frontends rely on external data providers and RPC nodes to fetch blockchain state and prices. If these are compromised:

• Oracle manipulation can display incorrect voting power or proposal data.
• A malicious RPC can censor transactions or feed stale data.
• Users may be tricked into voting based on false information.
• Best Practice: Allow users to manually configure their RPC endpoint.

The frontend mediates the interaction between the user's wallet and the governance contracts. Key risks include:

• Transaction simulation flaws that misrepresent the outcome.
• Malicious injected scripts (via a supply chain attack) that alter transaction data before signing.
• Interface misrepresentation, making a harmful vote appear beneficial.
• Defense: Use wallet transaction preview features and verify contract addresses directly on-chain.

Governance frontends are prime targets for stealing private keys or seed phrases:

• Fake browser extensions mimicking popular wallets.
• Social engineering prompts within the UI asking for sensitive information.
• Malicious governance proposals that, if interacted with, can drain wallets.
• Critical Rule: A legitimate governance frontend will never ask for your private key or seed phrase.

Modern frontends are built with numerous third-party libraries (npm packages). An attacker can:

• Compromise a widely-used library to inject malicious code into the frontend bundle.
• Target the project's build pipeline or CI/CD system.
• This attack can be stealthy and affect all users who visit the site.
• Mitigation: Use strict dependency pinning, audit tools, and subresource integrity checks.