In March 2025, Alex Leiby focused on stabilizing Proton’s Vulkan XR integration by addressing a critical bug in the ValveSoftware/Proton repository. He implemented a targeted fix in C that ensured the pNext field for Vulkan swapchain images was properly initialized to NULL, aligning with Vulkan extension chaining conventions. This change improved the handling of extension structures during swapchain image enumeration, reducing the risk of crashes for VR workloads using OpenXR and Vulkan. Alex’s work demonstrated careful cross-component debugging and attention to code hygiene, resulting in a more robust user experience and supporting broader adoption of Vulkan-based XR features in Proton.