This PR updates the `validate_unsigned` hook for `frame_system` to allow
valid tasks to be submitted as unsigned transactions. It also updates
the task example to be able to submit such transactions via an off-chain
worker.

---------

Co-authored-by: Bastian Köcher <[email protected]>

Fixes https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/issues/4206

In #1340 one of the storage types was changed from `Candidates` to
`CandidateList`. Since the actual key includes the hash of this value,
all of the candidates stored here are (a) "missing" and (b) unable to
unreserve their candidacy bond.

This migration kills the storage values and refunds the deposit held for
each candidate.

---------

Signed-off-by: georgepisaltu <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: georgepisaltu <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: Oliver Tale-Yazdi <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: georgepisaltu <[email protected]>

Ensure outbound XCMs are decodable with limits + add `EnsureDecodableXcm` router (for testing purposes) (#4186)

This PR:
- adds `EnsureDecodableXcm` (testing) router that attempts to *encode*
and *decode* passed XCM `message` to ensure that the receiving side will
be able to decode, at least with the same XCM version.
- fixes `pallet_xcm` / `pallet_xcm_benchmarks` assets data generation

Relates to investigation of
https://substrate.stackexchange.com/questions/11288 and missing fix
https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/pull/2129 which did not get
into the fellows 1.1.X release.

## Questions/TODOs

- [x] fix XCM benchmarks, which produces undecodable data - new router
catched at least two cases
  - `BoundedVec exceeds its limit`
  - `Fungible asset of zero amount is not allowed`  
- [x] do we need to add `sort` to the `prepend_with` as we did for
reanchor [here](https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/pull/2129)?
@serban300 (**created separate/follow-up PR**:
https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/pull/4235)
- [x] We added decoding check to `XcmpQueue` -> `validate_xcm_nesting`,
why not to added to the `ParentAsUmp` or `ChildParachainRouter`?
@franciscoaguirre

 (**created separate/follow-up PR**:
https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/pull/4236)
- [ ] `SendController::send_blob` replace `VersionedXcm::<()>::decode(`
with `VersionedXcm::<()>::decode_with_depth_limit(MAX_XCM_DECODE_DEPTH,
data)` ?

---------

Co-authored-by: Adrian Catangiu <[email protected]>

This is for adding onfinality polkadot bootnode. Please correct me if
this is not the right place for adding a new bootnode

This should be configured on the runtime level and not somewhere inside
the pallet.

---------

Co-authored-by: Adrian Catangiu <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: Branislav Kontur <[email protected]>

This PR:
- moves `validate_xcm_nesting` from `XcmpQueue` into the `VersionedXcm`
- adds `validate_xcm_nesting` to the `ParentAsUmp`
- adds `validate_xcm_nesting` to the `ChildParachainRouter`


Based on discussion
[here](https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/pull/4186#discussion_r1571344270)
and/or
[here](https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/pull/4186#discussion_r1572076666)
and/or [here]()

## Question/TODO

- [x] To the
[comment](https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/pull/4186#discussion_r1572072295)
- Why was `validate_xcm_nesting` added just to the `XcmpQueue` router
and nowhere else? What kind of problem `MAX_XCM_DECODE_DEPTH` is
solving? (see
[comment](https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/pull/4236#discussion_r1574605191))

Add a metric to be able to understand the time jobs are waiting in the
execution queue waiting for an available worker.
https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/issues/4126

Signed-off-by: Alexandru Gheorghe <[email protected]>

Weights::v3 also accounts for PoV weight so we no longer need the
SafeCallFilter. All calls are allowed as long as they "fit in the
block".

Basically combines all the recommended calls into one
`build_using_defaults()` call or `init_with_defaults()` when there are
some custom changes required.

We cannot lock to a specific version of `psvm`, because we will need to
keep it up-to-date - each release currently requires a change in `psvm`
such as [this one](https://github.com/paritytech/psvm/pull/2/files).

There is no `stable` branch in `psvm` repo or anything so using the
default branch.

Co-authored-by: alvicsam <[email protected]>

This PR:
- sanitizes all `UniversalLocation`s with `GlobalConsensus` (when
possible) - addressing
[comment](https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/pull/4025#discussion_r1557361473)
- adds `DefaultConfig` for `pallet-xcm-benchmarks` for `system`

Adds sorting to the XCM Assets' `prepend_with`, which could modify the
order of `AssetId` locations.

Relates to: https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/pull/4186 (the
same fix for `reanchored`)
Part of: https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/pull/2129

Co-authored-by: Bastian Köcher <[email protected]>

Generated type is not camel case this generate some warnings from IDE

label should be R0

This is the first PR in preparation for
https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/issues/454.

## Follow ups:
- https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/pull/3904.
- https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/pull/3905.

Overall changes are documented here (lot more visual 😍):
https://hackmd.io/@ak0n/454-np-governance

[Maybe followup](https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/issues/4217)
with migration of storage item `VirtualStakers` as a bool or enum in
`Ledger`.

## Context
We want to achieve a way for a user (`Delegator`) to delegate their
funds to another account (`Agent`). Delegate implies the funds are
locked in delegator account itself. Agent can act on behalf of delegator
to stake directly on Staking pallet.

The delegation feature is added to Staking via another pallet
`delegated-staking` worked on
[here](https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/pull/3904).

## Introduces:
### StakingUnchecked Trait
As the name implies, this trait allows unchecked (non-locked) mutation
of staking ledger. These apis are only meant to be used by other pallets
in the runtime and should not be exposed directly to user code path.
Also related: https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/issues/3888.

### Virtual Bond
Allows other pallets to stake via staking pallet while managing the
locks on these accounts themselves. Introduces another storage
`VirtualStakers` that whitelist these accounts.

We also restrict virtual stakers to set reward account as themselves.
Since the account has no locks, we cannot support compounding of
rewards. Conservatively, we require them to set a separate account
different from the staker. Since these are code managed, it should be
easy for another pallet to redistribute reward and rebond them.

### Slashes
Since there is no actual lock maintained by staking-pallet for virtual
stakers, this pallet does not apply any slashes. It is then important
for pallets managing virtual stakers to listen to slashing events and
apply necessary slashes.

follow up of https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/pull/2604
closes https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/pull/2604

- [x] take relevant changes from Marcin's PR 
- [x] extract common duplicate code for workers (low-hanging fruits)

~Some unpassed ci problems are more general and should be fixed in
master (see https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/pull/4074)~

Proposed labels: **T0-node**, **R0-silent**, **I4-refactor**

-----

kusama address: FZXVQLqLbFV2otNXs6BMnNch54CFJ1idpWwjMb3Z8fTLQC6

---------

Co-authored-by: s0me0ne-unkn0wn <[email protected]>

This PR stabilizes the txBroadcast API to version 1.

Needs from spec:
- https://github.com/paritytech/json-rpc-interface-spec/pull/153 
- https://github.com/paritytech/json-rpc-interface-spec/pull/154


cc @paritytech/subxt-team

---------

Signed-off-by: Alexandru Vasile <[email protected]>

This PR stabilizes the txBroadcast API to version 1.

Ideally needs:
- https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/pull/4050
- https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/pull/3772

cc @paritytech/subxt-team

---------

Signed-off-by: Alexandru Vasile <[email protected]>

Some Rococo parachains lacked WS nodes. `ws/wss` endpoints are necessary
for using light clients on the testnet.

Changes:
1. Add `ws/wss` endpoints to all testnet parachains.
2. Remove decommissioned nodes (`people-collator-node-2`
`people-collator-node-3` ).

Related to https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/issues/4126
discussion

Currently all preparations have same priority and this is not ideal in
all cases. This change should improve the finality time in the context
of on-demand parachains and when `ExecutorParams` are updated on-chain
and a rebuild of all artifacts is required. The desired effect is to
speed up approval and dispute PVF executions which require preparation
and delay backing executions which require preparation.

---------

Signed-off-by: Andrei Sandu <[email protected]>

- Returned latency (with it, results are more stable)
- The threshold is weakened
- Increased number of runs

This PR limits the number of active calls to the transactionBroadcast
APIs to 16.

cc @paritytech/subxt-team 

Closes: https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/issues/3081

---------

Signed-off-by: Alexandru Vasile <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: James Wilson <[email protected]>

This PR stabilizes the chainHead API to version 1.

Needs:
- https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/pull/3667

cc @paritytech/subxt-team

---------

Signed-off-by: Alexandru Vasile <[email protected]>

This PR ensures that broadcast future cleans-up the submitted extrinsic
from the pool, iff the `broadcast_stop` operation has been called.

This effectively cleans-up transactions from the pool when the
`broadcast_stop` is called.

cc @paritytech/subxt-team

---------

Signed-off-by: Alexandru Vasile <[email protected]>

approval-voting: Make sure we always mark approved candidates approved in a different relay chain context (#4153)

... see for more detail why this is needed

https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/issues/4149#issuecomment-2058472444

## TODO:
- [x] Unittests
- [x] Replicate scenario from
https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/issues/4149 and confirm this
fixes it: https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/issues/4149 [
Replicated on a zombienet with some hacked nodes, that we can end up in
this state where no-wake is schedule and the nodes are pending new
assignments]

---------

Signed-off-by: Alexandru Gheorghe <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: Andrei Sandu <[email protected]>

The `next_retry_time` gets populated when a request receives an error
timeout or any other error, after thatn next_retry would check all
requests in the queue returns the smallest one, which then gets used to
move the main loop by creating a Delay
```
futures_timer::Delay::new(instant.saturating_duration_since(Instant::now())).await,
```

However when we retry a task for the first time we still keep it in the
queue an mark it as in flight so its next_retry_time would be the oldest
and it would be small than `now`, so the Delay will always triggers, so
that would make the main loop essentially busy wait untill we received a
response for the retry request.

Fix this by excluding the tasks that are already in-flight.

---------

Signed-off-by: Alexandru Gheorghe <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: Andrei Sandu <[email protected]>

More details can be found
[here](https://github.com/paritytech/ci_cd/issues/939#issuecomment-2064061845)

Block reversion of the current block is technically possible as can be
seen from

https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/blob/39b1f50f/polkadot/runtime/parachains/src/disputes.rs#L1215-L1223

- [x] Fix the test

close https://github.com/paritytech/ci_cd/issues/974

This PR adds description to each of the sections of the Changelog part.
Changes are based on feedback that it wasn't that clear what exactly
`Node Dev`, `Runtime Dev` etc. means. Now, the description for each of
those parts is taken directly from the `prdoc` schema.
Closes https://github.com/paritytech/release-engineering/issues/197

cc https://github.com/paritytech/ci_cd/issues/974

---------

Co-authored-by: command-bot <>
Co-authored-by: Bastian Köcher <[email protected]>

PR adds `test-linux-stable-int` and `quick-benchmarks` as github action
jobs. It's a copy of `test-linux-stable-int` and `quick-benchmarks` from
gitlab ci and now it's needed to make a stress test for self-hosted
github runners. `test-linux-stable-int` and `quick-benchmarks` in gitlab
are still `Required` whereas this workflow is allowed to fail.

cc https://github.com/paritytech/infrastructure/issues/46

# Description
- Link to issue: https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/issues/3651

polkadot address: 19nSqFQorfF2HxD3oBzWM3oCh4SaCRKWt1yvmgaPYGCo71J

Introduce `touch` call designed to address operational prerequisites
before providing liquidity to a pool.

This function ensures that essential requirements, such as the presence
of the pool's accounts, are fulfilled. It is particularly beneficial in
scenarios where a pool creator removes the pool's accounts without
providing liquidity.

---------

Co-authored-by: command-bot <>