Clockwork is an open-source automation engine for the Solana blockchain. Developers can use Clockwork to schedule transactions and build automated, event-driven smart-contracts.
{% embed url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iBG1U3VE6Y" %} Clockwork presentation at Breakpoint 2022. {% endembed %}
Blockchains represent a major paradigm shift in software engineering. Where applications are traditionally hosted in large centrally managed data centers, blockchains like Solana offer an alternative computing environment – one that's run by a decentralized community of stakeholders. On a blockchain, computing is secured by smart-contracts and data is automatically replicated to thousands of servers around the world. This helps makes information more transparent to users and tamperproof from malicious actors. These qualities make blockchains an ideal choice for applications where cryptographically-secured truth is important.
Clockwork helps bring smart-contracts to life. We often want applications to run automatically, according a schedule, or to be triggered by some unplanned event. Developers can use Clockwork to encode these rules directly into their smart-contracts. Once these rules are in place, the Clockwork worker network (i.e. Solana RPC nodes) will monitor for the events your programs care about and submit transactions on your program's behalf. In this way, you can build fully autonomous smart-contracts without having to build and maintain your own expensive off-chain infrastructure.
Solana is the most performant and scalable public blockchain in the world. With its affordable fees, reliable transactions, and globally distributed validator network, Solana is a favorite amongst users and developers alike. Currently humming along at ~40,000,000 transactions per day, Solana processes more transactions than many other notable blockchains combined. And with over 2,000 validators running on six different continents around the world, Solana is by many metrics one the most decentralized blockchains in the world.