The Retro Grants track funds small contributions (<$5k) that contributors build first and apply for retroactively. The Review Team reviews completed work and decides whether it merits a payout from the Network Engineering SPE.

Key Design Principles

• Build first — no upfront approval. The work speaks for itself.
• Transparent by default — all applications and decisions are public, with written rationale.
• Impact-gated — the Review Team evaluates on need solved and adoption confirmed. Low-impact or self-serving submissions don't get paid.
• Fast cycle — monthly review keeps the process lightweight and predictable.
• Community-visible — the Forum category lets the community follow and comment on all applications.

Rubric

Eligible Engineering Areas

Retroactive grants are scoped to work that makes the Livepeer network more observable, performant, or developer-accessible. Eligible areas (subject to community input and refinement):

• [Developers] The 5-Minute API — Work that reduces time-to-integration for developers and AI agents alike. This includes the Python SDK, BYOC container tooling, payment and auth infrastructure, agentic harness tooling (scripts, tool definitions, and prompts that enable reliable agent loops), and any library or scaffolding that removes onboarding friction.
• [Delegators] Governance & Network Observability — Work that makes the network more legible and governable for LPT holders. This includes dashboards, Explorer improvements, data pipelines, and tooling that surfaces real network behaviour and enables informed participation in governance.
• [Orchestrators] Tooling & Infrastructure — Work that helps orchestrators run more reliably, scale capacity, and integrate with the evolving SDK-first architecture. This includes containerisation, orchestration tooling, runtime improvements, go-livepeer contributions, and infrastructure that affects network reliability and operational experience.

Work outside these areas is out of scope. Applications in the wrong category will be declined without review and may be redirected to the appropriate programme.

Community Proof Points (Required)

Before submitting a retroactive grant application, contributors must have obtained at least one community proof point:

• A Discord thread or other community discussion where the work was discussed and received positive signal, or
• An acknowledgement from a Review Team member that the work addresses a recognised need, or