Argument-0006: Promotion to Rank III

Report Date	Date of submission (2026/02/23)
Submitted by	Guillaume Thiolliere

Member details

• Matrix username: @guillaume:parity.io
• Polkadot address: 13psJuWEjBuZGaFqXvFnLMC6ME8RVVfQAhtFhydYjW45oKgZ
• Current rank: I
• Date of initial induction: 2025/01/09
• Date of last report: 2025/11/02
• Area(s) of Expertise/Interest:
  • polkadot business-logic (aka the 'runtime')
  • the internals of the frame pallet framework
  • runtime and host APIs

Executive Summary

I am applying for promotion to Rank III. My contributions to the Polkadot SDK demonstrate the technical mastery and security-conscious mindset required of a Fellow. Since my induction, I played a primary role in the implementation of the new Transaction Extensions, a major protocol component. Additionally, I have been a core implementer for the Proof-of-Personhood initiative (Referendum 1783) and have consistently demonstrated a security-first approach by precisely reviewing and even identifying one vulnerability before external auditors. My work is grounded in a deep understanding of FRAME's internals, knowledge built during my foundational contributions (2019–2022) and maintained through rigorous current-day code review.

Argument

1. Primary Implementation of Major Protocol Components

Manifesto Requirement: "Played a supporting role in the code-design and a primary role in the implementation of a major protocol component."

My primary contribution during this period has been the Transaction Extensions overhaul. While the initial ideation and code originated from Gavin Wood and the implementation was then taken over by George Pisaltu, I took a primary role in the concrete implementation, refactoring, and finalization of this major component.

• Implementation: I identified and fixed critical logic gaps in the original design, specifically regarding bare extrinsics and versioning in signed payloads. I refactored the codebase to ensure these changes were production-ready.
• Feature Expansion: I engineered support for more than 12 extensions (PR #7028) and am currently implementing support for multiple extension pipelines per runtime (PR #7035).
• Resource Management: I implemented the new weight reclaim logic (PR #6140) within this pipeline and fixed calculation errors in the initial specifications, ensuring accurate block resource accounting.

Additionally, I have implemented substantial components for the People Chain (Proof-of-Personhood):

• Origin Restriction: I designed and implemented the Origin Restriction pallet (Code) to regulate anonymous interactions.
• Modern APIs: I introduced pallet::authorize (PR #6324) to replace the deprecated "validate unsigned" flow, significantly improving the developer experience by abstracting validation complexity.

2. Security-Conscious & Game-Theoretic Thinking

Manifesto Requirement: "Thinking in a security-conscious, game-theoretic way... systems must function adequately even with a modest minority of malicious users."

A Fellow must act as a guardian of the network. My contributions demonstrate this mindset:

• Proactive Security: Through rigorous auditing of the SDK, I identified and notified Parity Technologies of a moderate security issue three months prior to its independent discovery by external auditors (SRLabs).
• Defensive Engineering: The Origin Restriction pallet I designed is explicitly game-theoretic, created to grant some free usage to specific actors while keeping it fair with other actors by taking into account the congestion mechanism used in transaction fees.
• Code Hardening: I regularly identify safety issues in the codebase, such as finding panics in the verifiable crate regarding invalid member keys (PR #21) and fixing potential transaction pool spam vectors in the experimental tasks feature (PR #10162).

3. Knowledge Sharing & Advocacy

Manifesto Requirement: "Demonstrable presence of knowledge sharing within the ecosystem."

I actively bridge the gap between internal implementation and ecosystem adoption:

• Ecosystem Education: I produced a technical deep-dive presentation on Transaction Extensions (YouTube Video) to help parachain developers prepare for this major breaking change.
• Documentation & Mentorship: I provide high-volume code reviews, frequently catching some issues, such as the accidental removal of Sudo keys (Comment), or using the same type for different concept like the relay chain and the parachain block number, or missing subtleties in the difference between the currency and the fungible API. I use these opportunities to mentor contributors on FRAME best practices.

4. Foundational Proficiency

Manifesto Requirement: "Understand the difference between what something does and how it works... build substantial protocol components alone."

My expertise is grounded in long-standing contributions to the core of FRAME (2019-2022). I rewrote the decl_* macros into the modern pallet macros and designed the Instantiable Pallet system (now critical for Asset Hub). This historical context proves my ability to design and maintain the foundational infrastructure that the entire network relies upon.

Voting record

Ranks	Activity thresholds	Agreement thresholds	Member's voting activities	Comments
I	90%	N/A	I have voted on 0 out of 0 referenda in which I was eligible to vote.
II	80%	N/A
III	70%	100%
IV	60%	90%
V	50%	80%
VI	40%	70%

Misc

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