Hardhat

Deploying Smart Contracts using Hardhat

What is Hardhat?

Hardhat is a development environment for Ethereum that helps developers manage and automate the common tasks involved in building smart contracts and decentralized applications. It can directly interact with Caldera's Ethereum API, allowing for the deployment of smart contracts into the Caldera network. Additionally, Hardhat is a comprehensive set of tools for creating Ethereum-based software, which includes various components that aid in editing, compiling, debugging, and deploying smart contracts and decentralized applications. All of these components work together to create a complete development environment.

Creating a Hardhat Project

1. Create a directory for your project

mkdir hardhat && cd hardhat

1. Initialize the project which will create a package.json file

npm init -y 

1. Install Hardhat

npm install hardhat

1. Create a project

npx hardhat 

1. Create an empty hardhat.config.js and install the Ethers plugin to use the Ethers.js library to interact with the network.

npm install @nomiclabs/hardhat-ethers ethers

Creating your Smart Contract

1. Create a contracts directory

mkdir contracts && cd contracts

1. Create your_contract.sol file in contracts directory

touch your_contract.sol

Creating your Configuration File

Modify the Hardhat configuration file and create a secure file to store your private key in.

1. Create a secrets.json file to store your private keytouch secrets.json

2. Add your private key to secrets.json{"privateKey": "YOUR-PRIVATE-KEY-HERE"}

3. Add the file to your project's .gitignore, and never reveal your private key.

4. Modify the hardhat.config.js file

   • Import the Ethers plugin

   • Import the secrets.json file

   • Inside the module.exportsadd the Caldera network configuration

//hardhat.config.js​require('@nomiclabs/hardhat-ethers');const { privateKey } = require('./secrets.json');​module.exports = {solidity: "0.8.1",defaultNetwork: "rinkeby",networks: {rinkeby: {url: "https://eth-rinkeby.alchemyapi.io/v2/123abc123abc123abc123abc123abcde",accounts: [privateKey]},caldera: {url: "RPC URL", // Insert your RPC URL HerechainId: CHAINID, //Insert your ChainID Here}},}