Scilla plugin for Hardhat updated to v3.4.8

The Zilliqa infrastructure team has released version 3.4.8 of the Scilla plugin for EVM development environment Hardhat.

Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is the software platform used to build applications on Ethereum and other protocols that have implemented EVM compatibility, including the Zilliqa network.

Hardhat is a development environment which makes it easy for developers to compile and deploy EVM-compatible smart contracts.

This plugin is used to test Scilla contracts in Hardhat and aims to deliver similar functionality to that which Ethers.js offers for Solidity developers. It allows developers to deploy Scilla contracts using their names and call transitions as they would a normal function call, as well as allowing them to use custom chai characters to expect Scilla events from within the Hardhat runtime environment.

With this plugin, testing Scilla contracts can be done in the same way Ethers.js is used for Solidity. It is possible to deploy a Scilla contract by its name and call its transitions just like a normal function call, as well as get a field value through a function call.

Version 3.4.8 of the Scilla plugin for Hardhat includes a number of improvements aimed at improving the developer experience when testing Scilla contracts within the development environment.

Previous versions of the plugin required users to build Scilla executables explicitly, adding difficulty and friction to the process of using Scilla tools in Hardhat. The latest version of the plugin now runs Scilla tools using containers, removing the need to build Scilla executables explicitly.

To take advantage of this new feature, developers simply need to have Docker or a compatible container runtime installed.

Other notable improvements in version 3.4.8 of the plugin include various fixes, event log translators for easier chai matching, and support for using the plugin with multiple accounts.

Read the full release notes for the latest version of the Scilla plugin for Hardhat.

These improvements to the Scilla plugin for Hardhat form part of a broader ongoing effort to improve the experience of building on Zilliqa using Hardhat and other EVM-compatible tools.

Zilliqa’s EVM compatibility implementation continues to be built out, with improvements being steadily rolled out to make the creation and deployment of applications as accessible as possible.

These improvements include the recent implementation of interoperability between Scilla and EVM fungible token standards, allowing ZRC-2 tokens to appear as ERC-20 tokens to other contracts.

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