FIP Tracker
A Filecoin Improvement Proposals tracker tool for the broader Filecoin community, surfacing governance activity in a clear and digestible format.
Problem
Filecoin is a decentralized storage network designed to store humanity's most important information. To continuously improve and evolve the network, the Filecoin community follows a structured governance process through Filecoin Improvement Proposals (FIPs).
FIPs are managed primarily on GitHub, which serves as the source of truth. However, relying solely on GitHub, non-technical users and broader community members find it difficult to engage with and track FIP progress.
To address this, the idea was to build a dedicated FIP tracker integrated into Metropolis, an existing platform originally designed as a no-binding sentiment check tool for the Filecoin community. Centralizing the tracker within Metropolis would streamline governance participation, keeping all relevant discussions, updates, and sentiment checks in one place.
Process
I worked closely with the Filecoin head of governance, a governance project manager, and an engineer to define what the tool needed to do. One thing that came up early was the 'Last Call' stage: a FIP at Last Call has a limited window for community input before it is finalized, and GitHub gives no indication of that urgency. A countdown timer became one of the first concrete design decisions.
Challenges and solutions
The main challenge was density: eight different FIP statuses, variable metadata, and a community split between GitHub-native contributors and non-technical observers who just wanted to follow along. Color-coded status labels made proposal stages scannable at a glance, and search and filtering by author, status, date, and type let each user type find what they needed quickly.
The more interesting decision was customization. Because the audience was so mixed, we gave users control over which columns they actually wanted to see (authors, creation date, type, category), so they could shape the view around how they used the tool rather than being forced through a one-size-fits-all layout.
I explored several ways to present the data before landing on a layout where each proposal card shows the essentials and can be expanded for more detail.
Outcome
The tool was developed by an external contractor and launched as FIL Poll. It is now live and in use by the Filecoin ecosystem community.