Building Aragon OSx with the Unix Philosophy
How we built Aragon OSx to be simple, modular, and flexible; check out the new DAOs launching on Base; Learn how to manage DAO membership with onchain actions
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Aragon OSx, our adaptable DAO framework, is built with the Unix Philsophy. Learn about the principles we applied and how we turned some of them—such as “everything is a file”—into our own. Read the blog or watch the talk to dive in deeper.
We’re excited about all the new DAOs launching on Base! Join them by starting your own organization on this low-cost layer two. Check out the guide and video to see how simple it is to launch on Base, or dive right in on the Aragon App.
You can manage your DAO membership entirely through onchain actions in the Aragon App. Simply create a proposal with the automatic action to manage membership, and it will become executable aftering passing! Learn how to add/remove multisig members and mint more tokens in this new guide and video.
Building Aragon OSx with the Unix Philosophy
The Unix philosophy is a set of norms and practices established by developers working on the Unix operating system in the 1970’s. The philosophy became so influential that it spread beyond developers in that ecosystem to builders across multiple industries.
Here are some key aspects of the Unix philosophy that we applied to building OSx:
Simplicity
Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Rather than build one monolithic program that handles many things and is hard to change, each program should do one thing well.
Modularity, Composability
Write programs to work together. Since we’re not building monolithic programs, all the small pieces need to work together into one larger system.
Flexibility
Allow a feature to be reused in different contexts. The same program, if flexible enough, can be reused in different contexts so you don’t need to build something new every time.
Everything is a file -> Everything is a permission
In Unix, everything is a file. This makes it easy to reuse the same tools and utilities, because you already know what everything those tools and utilities need to interact with is.
In Aragon OSx, everything is a permission. Like the concept of “everything is a file,” classifying things as permissions makes it easier to reuse the same tools and reduces complexity.
Here are a few more guiding principles of Unix that we applied to OSx:
One correct way of doing things: This standardizes best practices, so builders aren’t confused by different styles of doing things.
Be explicit about what you do: There’s no hidden magic. Everyone can use, understand, and audit this protocol.
Only pay for features you actually use: There’s no hidden bloat. You just pay gas for the features you use, rather than paying for everything.
Easy to understand, verify, and reason about: This contributes to the security of the protocol, because it’s not convoluted or complex.
Want to dive into the protocol? Check out the developer documentation:
One of our lead developers behind OSx described how the Unix philosophy was applied to Aragon OSx in a talk. Watch it below:
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Network Highlights
What DAOs have been launched on Base so far? Check out a few exciting ones:
Did you know you can manage your DAO membership—by adding or removing multisig members or minting new governance tokens—entirely through proposals with onchain actions?
Learn how to manage your DAO membership in the Aragon App in this guide and video:
CTAs
Read more about how Aragon OSx was built with the Unix philosophy.
Try launching a test DAO on the Aragon App on Base.
Check out how to manage DAO membership entirely through onchain proposals using the Aragon App.
Have a great weekend!
—Aragon Growth Guild