docs: add zk-kit-cultivating-the-garden-of-progcrypto article (#561)

content/articles/zk-kit-cultivating-the-garden-of-progcrypto.md

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+---
+authors: ["ZK-Kit team"] # Add your name or multiple authors in an array
+title: "ZK-Kit: Cultivating the Garden of ProgCrypto" # The title of your article
+image: "/articles/zk-kit-cultivating-the-garden-of-progcrypto/cover.webp" # Image used as cover,  Keep in mind the image size, where possible use .webp format, possibly images less then 200/300kb
+tldr: "ZK-Kit is a collection of secure and easy-to-use libraries that make building privacy tools safer and faster. PSE has grown it, and now we invite the community to expand it together." #Short summary
+date: "2025-09-23" # Publication date in ISO format
+tags: ["zero-knowledge", "ZK-Kit"] # (Optional) Add relevant tags as an array of strings to categorize the article
+projects: ["zk-kit", "semaphore", "maci"]
+---
+
+ProgCrypto has [conquered](https://l2beat.com/scaling/summary) scalability, but privacy still has ways to go. By improving our tooling, we expedite the journey towards a more privacy-conscious future. 
+
+Software libraries shy away behind an interface but they pack a lot of heat. They are a developer's best friend: boosting productivity without imposing too much of an opinion on the overall application -unlike their fiesty loud sibling, SDKs.
+
+ProgCrypto libraries are _especially_ special because they shield developers from security and soundness minefields had they rolled their own cryptography -an ever present concern.
+
+But that is only true when libraries are: 
+- Open-sourced for maximal eye-ball attention and bug detection
+- Well-tested and re-(re-(..))-audited
+- Carefully designed to avoid accidental mishaps that can result from poorly designed interfaces and leaky data-function encapsulations
+- Well-documented not only to minimize onboarding overhead on developers but also ensure proper use and understanding of security assumptions
+
+At PSE, we love ProgCrypto libraries. 
+
+We lift modular components from the [projects we build](https://pse.dev/en/projects), put them through dedicated security reviews, benchmarking, and thorough and continous testing. We also put emphasis on cleanly standardized interfaces across different implementations of the same functionality in different languages -_learn it once, use it everywhere_. 
+
+This effort has culminated into our garden of ProgCrypto libraries: [ZK-Kit](https://github.com/zk-kit). Since its early days, we have only increasingly doubled-down on this conscious effort, leading to: 
+
+- 23 packages in 5 supported languages
+- ~200 users by repository counts
+- ~30 contributors (~7 from PSE)
+- ~1500 commits
+
+### We want even more goodness
+
+Today we would like to open the gates to this beautiful garden and welcome a wider community contributors to be part of its journey, pushing it to new heights.
+
+We call upon fellow developers and peer projects in our ecosystem to lift useful modular libraries from their codebases, and plant them in this communal garden.
+
+Having the community coalescing around standardized libraries of common primitives is now a major goal for PSE.
+
+Our standards are high, but we hope the community finds the contribution process and feedback a valuable learning process and a badge of achievement upon a successful merge.
+
+We are more ambitious that ever to: 
+
+- Add more libraries while ever increasing quality controls: testing, benchmarking, security reviews, and assessment of interface ergonomics
+- Increase awareness and help onboard contributors
+- Give active contributors and projects a say in governance, standards and best practices 
+
+We invite peer projects in our ecosystem to lift modular components that can be useful to others, and contribute to ZK-Kit. This is a win-win:
+
+- A win for the contributing projects for having extra eyes on their components and having them stress-tested and security-reviewed
+- A win for the community of developers to boost their productivity and lean on their new components
+
+We also invite independent developers to proactively contribute to ZK-Kit. Successfully contributing to this garden is not only a learning experience (our standards are high and there will likely be reviews and revisions), but also a chance to leave your mark on countless other projects that may use your code:
+
+- Transplant a Pull Request tree or bring an [issue](https://github.com/zk-kit#-open-issues) flower into the ZK-Kit garden
+- Get help and advice about your intended contribution in the [community channel](https://github.com/zk-kit/zk-kit/discussions)
+- Raise awareness of ZK-Kit, (re)use it and give feedback
+
+We would like to extend a big thank you to all the contributors and maintainers who made this possible. We are excited to continue supporting ZK-Kit with even more community involvement.