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Introduction

Eris is an application platform for building, testing, maintaining, and
operating applications built to run on an ecosystem level.

eris:cli is a tool which makes it easy for developers to build, test, manage, and operate smart contract applications. No matter the blockchain.

For the motivation behind this tool see this post.

Install (For Developers)

• Install Docker.
• Install Go.

go get github.com/eris-ltd/eris-cli/cmd/eris
eris init

See below for the directory structure created by init.

Install (For Non-Developers)

Please see our getting started page for those who are not familiar with go and/or docker.

Overview

The eris tool is centered around a very few concepts:

• services — things that you turn on or off
• chains — develop permissioned chains
• pkgs — our smart contract tool chain
• keys — wrapping of our key management tooling
• files — working the IPFS "permanent web"
• data — take the pain out of data persistence on docker

These concepts provide the core functionality of what we think a true smart contract application platform requires.

To get started using eris to see what the tooling can do and how it can help your development patterns for smart contract applications, please see our getting started tutorial series.

Architecture of the Tool

eris:cli is mostly an opinionated wrapper around Docker's API. We have found that running applications locally which require sophisticated installation paths and/or complex configuration work best when used from Docker's container based system.

Each of the concepts listed above is described in a bit more detail below.

Services

Services are "things that you turn on or off". Examples of services include:

• a PGP daemon
• an IPFS node
• a Bitcoin node
• an Ethereum node
• a Tendermint test chain node
• BigchainDB service
• ZCash node

Services work from a base of service definition files. These files are held on the host in the following location: ~/.eris/services. Service definition files tell eris how a docker container should be started. The specification for service definition files is located here.

To see the various ways in which eris can interact with services, please type:

eris services

Chains

Chains are an opinionated toolchain around permissioned chains. They can be most easily thought of as your "develop" branch for chains. In other words, if you need to work on a permissioned chain, then it is best to use eris chains. Chains hardcode most of the service starting criteria, but still allow for some flexibility as to how chains are worked with.

Chains are operated from a base of chain definition files. These files are held on the host in the following location: ~/.eris/chains. The specification for chain definition files is located here.

To see the various ways in which eris can help you develop chains, please type:

eris chains

Pkgs

Pkgs are an opinionated toolkit to help you deploy and test your smart contract packages on both permissioned and unpermissioned blockchain networks.

eris pkgs utilizes the eris:package_manager to deal with contracts. eris:package_manager is a yaml based automation framework which makes it trivial to deploy and test your smart contract systems. The specification for eris:package_manager definition files is located here.

Pkgs give you access to test your smart contracts both against "throwaway chains" which are one time use chains that are needed for the sole purpose of testing smart contract packages, as well as existing blockchain networks.

To see the various ways in which eris can help you develop smart contract applications, please type:

eris pkgs

Keys

Keys is an opinionated toolchain around eris:keys. Please note that this concept of the eris platform is for development only and should not be used in production because it has not been fully security audited and we do not plan for it to be. In production the keys service should be replaced with your audited security system of choice.

To see the various ways in which eris can help you manage your various key pairs, please type:

eris keys

Files

Eris has a pretty handy wrapper around IPFS which is useful for quick file sharing from the host.

To see the various ways in which eris can help you with distributed file sharing, please type:

eris files

Data

Eris can automagically utilize data containers for you.

If you turn the data_container variable to true in the service or chain definition file, then eris deposit the data utilized by that service or chain into a data container which can be managed separately from the "program" container. The advantage of working with data containers has been dealt with elsewhere (see, Google).

To see the various ways in which eris can help you manage your data containers, please type:

eris data

Directory Structure

Created by eris init in $HOME directory:

├── .eris/
│   ├── eris.toml
│   ├── apps/
│   ├── bundles/
│   ├── chains/
│       ├── account-types/
│       ├── chain-types/
│   ├── keys/
│       ├── data/
│       ├── names/
│   ├── remotes/
│   ├── scratch/
│       ├── data/
│       ├── languages/
│       ├── lllc/
│       ├── ser/
│       ├── sol/
│   ├── services/
│       ├── global/
│       ├── ipfs.toml
│       ├── keys.toml

Contributions

Are Welcome! Before submitting a pull request please:

• read up on How The Marmots Git
• fork from develop
• go fmt your changes
• have tests
• pull request
• be awesome

That's pretty much it.

See our CONTRIBUTING.md and PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md for more details.

Please note that this repository is GPLv3.0 per the LICENSE file. Any code which is contributed via pull request shall be deemed to have consented to GPLv3.0 via submission of the code (were such code accepted into the repository).

Bug Reporting

Found a bug in our stack? Make an issue!

The issue template specifies what needs to be included in your issue and will autopopulate the issue.

License

Proudly GPL-3. See license file.