Hi everyone,
I’ve been digging into the Tari Ootle ecosystem lately, and I wanted to share a thought about the current state of the documentation over at https://ootle.tari.com.
The site does a great job of what it sets out to do: it’s a developer-focused playground. You can connect a wallet, learn template development basics, walk through building your first template, publish to the network, and execute transactions. The guides are practical, and the reference docs for tari_template_lib are there for those who need them. It’s clearly built with an “agent first” mindset, designed so that coding agents can start building Tari tapplets right away.
But here’s the thing: the playground is all we have right now.
If you’re trying to understand what Ootle actually is—beyond a set of Rust macros and WASM templates—the site leaves you hanging. There’s no section on the theory behind the RFCs, no architectural overview of how the L2 fits together, no glossary of terms, no vision/roadmap, and no tokenomics explanation. For someone coming in fresh, Ootle looks like a smart contract framework, and Tari looks like just a PoW L1 with some extra bells and whistles.
That’s a problem, because Ootle is so much more than that.
Here’s what’s missing—and why it matters:
1. RFC Theory & Protocol Specifications
The technical specifications for Ootle exist—they’re over at https://rfc.tari.com. The GitHub repo also points to the RFCs for the technical specifications of the Ootle. But there’s no bridge between the playground and the RFCs. A developer landing on ootle.tari.com has no idea these documents exist unless they go digging. We need a section that explains the protocol theory in accessible terms, with links to the RFCs for those who want to go deep.
2. Architecture
What’s the actual architecture of the Ootle network? Right now, the playground tells you about templates and components, but it doesn’t explain the consensus mechanism (Cerberus BFT, which provides 100% finality as long as 67% of the network is honest), the sharding model, epoch management, or how the L2 interacts with the L1. The dual-layer design is what makes Tari unique—leveraging PoW security on L1 with the scalability of BFT on L2—but that story isn’t told anywhere on the Ootle site.
3. Terminology / Glossary
Terms like “substates,” “components,” “resources,” “epochs,” “shards,” and “validator committees” get thrown around in the code and the RFCs, but there’s no central glossary for newcomers. A simple terminology page would go a long way toward making the ecosystem more approachable.
4. Vision & Roadmap
Where is Ootle going? The Tari Updates blog touches on Ootle developments from time to time, and there’s chatter about AI agents being the primary participants in the L2 ecosystem. But there’s no consolidated vision statement or roadmap on the Ootle site itself. What’s the long-term goal? What’s the timeline? What are the major milestones?
5. Tokenomics
This is a big one. The Tari network uses a two-token system: XTM on Layer 1 (Minotari) and XTR on Layer 2 (Ootle). The only way to create XTR is to burn XTM 1:1. There’s a total supply of 21 billion XTM emitted over ~27.8 years with a 1% tail emission, 30% pre-mined with vesting schedules, and a transaction fee burn mechanism on Ootle to maintain supply equilibrium. All of this is documented on the main Tari site, but none of it appears on the Ootle playground. For anyone trying to understand the economic incentives of building on Ootle, this is essential context.
The Bottom Line
Right now, ootle.tari.com is a fantastic developer onboarding tool. But it’s not yet a complete project documentation hub. If the goal is to attract not just developers but also investors, partners, and curious community members, the site needs to tell the full story of what Ootle is and why it matters.
The good news is that all of this information exists—it’s just scattered across the Tari blog, the RFC repository, the main Tari website, and various GitHub issues. What’s needed is a consolidation effort: bring the theory, architecture, terminology, vision, and tokenomics onto the Ootle site itself, so that visitors can go from “what is Ootle?” to “how do I build on it?” in one place.
Is anyone else feeling this gap? Would love to hear the team’s thoughts on whether these sections are in the pipeline.
Cheers
