NEAR Protocol - scalable and usable blockchain

NEAR Protocol is a new smart-contract platform that delivers scalability and usability.

Through sharding it aims to linearly scale with number of validation nodes on the network.

Leveraging WebAssembly, TypeScript, more sane contract management, ephemeral accounts and many other advancement, NEAR makes using blockchain protocol for developers and consumers way easier compared to competitors.

Status

Project is currently under heavy development. Please see Issues and Milestones to checkout the current progress and work items.

High level milestones:

• DevNet: a tool with fully working State Transition + WebAssembly.
• MVB: Minimum viable blockchain with smart contracts, supporting TxFlow and on chain governance.
• Shard chains: support for fully scalable sharded blockchain.

Building

Setup rust

$ curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh
$ rustup component add clippy-preview

You may need to activate the environment via . ~/.cargo/env to use cargo.

Install dependencies

Mac OS:

brew install protobuf

Ubuntu:

apt-get install protobuf-compiler

Build & Run from source code

# Download NEAR Core code.
git clone https://github.com/nearprotocol/nearcore
cd nearcore

It will build the first time and then run:

cargo run

Testing

In order to run tests currently, you must setup the following:

# sudo may be required if you are not testing with a python virtual environment
pip install protobuf

Logging

For runnable apps (devnet, nearcore, etc.), you can use the --log-level option to configure the log level across all internal crates. You can also use the RUST_LOG environment variable, with env_logger semantics to override the log level for specific targets. RUST_LOG can also be used in integration tests which spawn runnable apps.

Example:

$ RUST_LOG=runtime=debug cargo run -- --log-level warn

To add new target (e.g. info!(target: "my target", "hello")), add the desired target to the list in node/cli/src/service.rs in configure_logging function.

Simple Install for Mac and Linux

Coming soon.

DevNet

DevNet is a development tool that runs WebAssembly and State transition without running blockchain/consensus functionality.

First, generate key pair (saves a key pair into keystore folder to use with rpc.py):

cargo run --package keystore -- keygen --test-seed alice.near

Then build and run DevNet:

cargo run --release --package=devnet

Use -- --log-level Debug to see more information about RPC and transaction processing.

Try submitting transactions or views via JSON RPC:

# See usage of rpc helper script
./scripts/rpc.py --help

# Get usage of sub command
./scripts/rpc.py send_money --help

# Send money
./scripts/rpc.py send_money -r bob -a 1

# Deploy a smart contract
./scripts/rpc.py deploy test_contract tests/add.wasm

# Call method 'run_test' for contract 'test_contract'
./scripts/rpc.py schedule_function_call test_contract add --args '{"a": 10, "b": 20}'

# Call view function 'run_test' for contract 'test_contract'
./scripts/rpc.py call_view_function test_contract add --args '{"a": 10, "b": 20}'

# View state for Bob's account
./scripts/rpc.py view_account -a bob

# Create an account
./scripts/rpc.py create_account cindy 1

# View full state db of the contract
./scripts/rpc.py view_state test_contract

Development

If you are planning to contribute, there are few more things to setup

Setup git hooks

./scripts/setup_hooks.sh

Setup rustfmt for your editor (optional)

Installation instructions here

Lints

We currently use clippy to enforce certain standards. This check is run automatically during CI builds, and in a pre-commit hook. You can run do a clippy check with ./scripts/run_clippy.sh.

Running TestNet locally

Navigate to the root of the project. To start the network from a new state remove the storage:

rm -rf test1 test2

Launch the boot node:

cargo run -- --addr 127.0.0.1:3000 --rpc_port 3030 --base-path=test1 --test-network-key-seed 1 --chain-spec-file ./node/configs/res/testnet_chain.json

The boot node will print the string that we can use to boot from it. For example:

To boot from this node: 127.0.0.1:3000/GuMriipt4yUXfkZL2z3zLPbYaozkZG6zjV6vg4QruEvY

Launch the second node using the first one as the boot:

cargo run -- -a bob.near --addr 127.0.0.1:3001 --rpc_port 3031 --base-path=test2 --test-network-key-seed 2 --chain-spec-file ./node/configs/res/testnet_chain.json --boot-nodes 127.0.0.1:3000/GuMriipt4yUXfkZL2z3zLPbYaozkZG6zjV6vg4QruEvY

Submit account creation transaction on one node:

./scripts/rpc.py create_account jason 1 --public-key 22skMptHjFWNyuEWY22ftn2AbLPSYpmYwGJRGwpNHbTV

Verify that the account was created by checking it on the other node:

./scripts/rpc.py view_account -a jason -u http://127.0.0.1:3031/