abi-deployments

Why?

Should I commit the build directory?

If you ever worked with Truffle, I bet you asked yourself this question at least once.

There are different currents of thought between developers but there are a few unavoidable side effects in committing the build directory:

• the updatedAt field is updated every time a contract is compiled
• some user-specific absolute paths are stored inside every artifact and may cause problems when multiple persons are working on the same codebase
• git diffs become much more difficult and messy to read

But Truffle artifacts also contain the addresses of deployed contracts for each network and these are crucial in order for migrations to work properly.

The solution is to store the addresses in separate files and commit them instead of the build directory.

Later on, another developer working on the same codebase could just clone the repo, compile the contracts and merge the deployment addresses back into the artifacts, thus restoring a clean and working state for Truffle.

Installation

npm install --save-dev abi-deployments

Usage

1. Export: deployments are read from Truffle artifacts and stored into separate network-specific JSON files.
2. Import: previously exported deployments are merged back into Truffle artifacts.

The most common usage is through Command Line Interface but a Programmable API is available as well.

Command Line Interface

Export deployments

The export command will scan the artifactsDir and collect info about the deployments that were made on different networks for each contract. Then it will store the deployments in JSON files inside the networksDir, one for each network.

truffle-deployments export [artifactsDir] [networksDir]

Option	Description
--network <network>, -n	specify network/s to export (e.g. 1 or 1,4)
--reset, -r	delete old exported deployments

If not specified, artifactsDir defaults to build/contracts and networksDir defaults to networks.

If a network file already exists, by default Truffle Deployments will append new deployments without deleting the old ones with the exception of conflicting contracts that will be overwritten. To delete the old deployments consider using the --reset option.

Consider this initial state:

// build/contracts/Token.json

{
  "contractName": "Token",
  "abi": [],
  "bytecode": "0x60806040523480156200001157600080fd5b50604"
  "networks": {
    "1": {
      "events": {},
      "links": {},
      "address": "0xefE1e4e13F9ED8399eE8e258b3a1717b7D15f054",
      "transactionHash": "0x35db37ae85e2d4af8fb6fc83f1e6edf5ade8700cf75e19dc3f1a0307768948c7"
    },
    "4": {
      "events": {},
      "links": {},
      "address": "0xb56c770c2fa5222947a9e3c5beb8dc46dd656b5f",
      "transactionHash": "0xe31509629b75866917ab387751a75b737b973622d9765af69b557bde038e1210"
    }
  }
}

Running the export command will generate the following network files inside the networksDir:

networks/
  1.json
  4.json

Each network file contains all exported deployments:

// networks/1.json

[
  {
    "contract": "Token",
    "address": "0xefE1e4e13F9ED8399eE8e258b3a1717b7D15f054",
    "transactionHash": "0x35db37ae85e2d4af8fb6fc83f1e6edf5ade8700cf75e19dc3f1a0307768948c7"
  }
]

// networks/4.json

[
  {
    "contract": "Token",
    "address": "0xb56c770c2fa5222947a9e3c5beb8dc46dd656b5f",
    "transactionHash": "0xe31509629b75866917ab387751a75b737b973622d9765af69b557bde038e1210"
  }
]

Import deployments

The import command will scan all the exported deployments inside the networksDir and merge them into respective contract artifact in the artifactsDir.

truffle-deployments import [networksDir] [artifactsDir]

Option	Description
--network <network>, -n	specify network/s to import (e.g. 1 or 1,4)

If not specified, artifactsDir defaults to build/contracts and networksDir defaults to networks.

Consider this initial state:

// networks/4.json

[
  {
    "contract": "Token",
    "address": "0xb56c770c2fa5222947a9e3c5beb8dc46dd656b5f",
    "transactionHash": "0xe31509629b75866917ab387751a75b737b973622d9765af69b557bde038e1210"
  }
]

// build/contracts/Token.json

{
  "contractName": "Token",
  "abi": [],
  "bytecode": "0x60806040523480156200001157600080fd5b50604"
  "networks": {
    "1": {
      "events": {},
      "links": {},
      "address": "0xefE1e4e13F9ED8399eE8e258b3a1717b7D15f054",
      "transactionHash": "0x35db37ae85e2d4af8fb6fc83f1e6edf5ade8700cf75e19dc3f1a0307768948c7"
    }
  }
}

Running the import command will update build/contracts/Token.json like this:

// build/contracts/Token.json

{
  "contractName": "Token",
  "abi": [],
  "bytecode": "0x60806040523480156200001157600080fd5b50604"
  "networks": {
    "1": {
      "events": {},
      "links": {},
      "address": "0xefE1e4e13F9ED8399eE8e258b3a1717b7D15f054",
      "transactionHash": "0x35db37ae85e2d4af8fb6fc83f1e6edf5ade8700cf75e19dc3f1a0307768948c7"
    },
    "4": {
      "events": {},
      "links": {},
      "address": "0xb56c770c2fa5222947a9e3c5beb8dc46dd656b5f",
      "transactionHash": "0xe31509629b75866917ab387751a75b737b973622d9765af69b557bde038e1210"
    }
  }
}

Programmable API

Beside the Command Line Interface, Truffle Deployments can also be used programmatically.

Export deployments

const truffleDeployments = require('truffle-deployments');

const artifactsDir = 'build/contracts';
const networksDir = 'networks';
const options = { networks: [4], reset: true };

truffleDeployments.export(artifactsDir, networksDir, options);

Import deployments

const truffleDeployments = require('truffle-deployments');

const artifactsDir = 'build/contracts';
const networksDir = 'networks';
const options = { networks: [4] };

truffleDeployments.import(networksDir, artifactsDir, options);