Quick Start

This is a Hardhat network provider plugin for Ape. Hardhat is a development framework written in Node.js for Ethereum that includes a local network implementation. Use this plugin to manage a Hardhat node process or connect to an existing one.

Dependencies

• python3 version 3.9 up to 3.12.
• Node.js, NPM, and Hardhat 2.12.0 or greater. See Hardhat's Installation documentation for steps.

Installation

via pip

You can install the latest release via pip:

pip install ape-hardhat

via setuptools

You can clone the repository and use setuptools for the most up-to-date version:

git clone https://github.com/ApeWorX/ape-hardhat.git
cd ape-hardhat
python3 setup.py install

Quick Usage

To use the plugin, first install Hardhat locally into your Ape project directory:

cd your-ape-project
npm install --save-dev hardhat

After that, you can use the --network ethereum:local:hardhat command line flag to use the hardhat network (if it's not already configured as the default).

This network provider takes additional Hardhat-specific configuration options. To use them, add these configs in your project's ape-config.yaml:

hardhat:
  host: 127.0.0.1:8555

To select a random port, use a value of "auto":

hardhat:
  host: auto

NOTE: If you plan on running multiple Hardhat nodes of any kind, you likely will want to use auto or configure multiple hosts (see examples below).

This is useful for multiprocessing and starting up multiple providers.

You can also adjust the request timeout setting:

hardhat:
  request_timeout: 20  # Defaults to 30
  fork_request_timeout: 600  # Defaults to 300

Mainnet Fork

The ape-hardhat plugin also includes a mainnet fork provider. It requires using another provider that has access to mainnet.

Use it in most commands like this:

ape console --network :mainnet-fork:hardhat

Specify the upstream archive-data provider in your ape-config.yaml:

hardhat:
  fork:
    ethereum:
      mainnet:
        upstream_provider: alchemy

Otherwise, it defaults to the default mainnet provider plugin. You can also specify a block_number.

NOTE: Make sure you have the upstream provider plugin installed for ape.

If you wish to run both a forked network and the local Hardhat network simultaneously, you may configure a separate host for the forked network(s).

hardhat:
  fork:
    ethereum:
      mainnet:
        upstream_provider: alchemy
        host: 127.0.0.1:8555
    polygon:
      mainnet:
        upstream_provider: alchemy
        host: 127.0.0.1:8556

Hardhat deployments are disabled for forks for performance reasons. If you want your contract deployments to run on your fork, you can set enable_hardhat_deployments to true in your config:

hardhat:
  fork:
    ethereum:
      mainnet:
        upstream_provider: alchemy
        enable_hardhat_deployments: true

ape plugins install alchemy

Remote Hardhat Node

To connect to a Hardhat node, set up your config like this:

hardhat:
  host: https://hardhat.example.com

Now, instead of launching a local process, it will attempt to connect to the remote Hardhat node and use this plugin as the ape interace.

Custom Hardhat Config File

By default, Ape generates and uses a basic config file for starting up a Hardhat node and having the same test accounts that Ape expects. To avoid conflict with other pre-existing Hardhat config files, Ape generates one in $HOME/.ape/hardhat and always refers to that one. To use a different one, such as the one in your local project instead, add the following to your ape-config.yaml:

hardhat:
  hardhat_config_file: ./hardhat.config.ts

NOTE: You can refer to either a Hardhat JS file or a Hardhat TS file.

Development

Please see the contributing guide to learn more how to contribute to this project. Comments, questions, criticisms and pull requests are welcomed.