Separate Hardhat Runner and Hardhat Network

[fvictorio]

This is the main tracking issue for splitting Hardhat Runner and Network into separate packages. This needs research and design, but tentatively we should:

• Have a different package for the Hardhat Network, that can be used for programmatically creating instances. This would be a big step towards having better support for working with multiple networks at the same time.
• Define the interface of this package taking into account that its core will eventually be replaced with Rethnet.
• Use the Hardhat Network package to create a hardhat-network-cli binary.

Related issues:

• #2496
• #692

[github-actions[bot]]

This issue is also being tracked on Linear.

We use Linear to manage our development process, but we keep the conversations on Github.

LINEAR-ID: e31462bc-6cf5-41d4-a8a8-229f36633268

[npty]

I'm particularly excited about the prospect of programmatically creating instances of the Hardhat Network.

In light of the growing number of cross-chain projects, this feature is becoming more critical than ever. It's a rapidly evolving field, and tools like these that enhance our ability to work with multiple networks are in high demand. This feature will enable us to build more robust and versatile applications, ultimately contributing to the evolution and maturity of the cross-chain ecosystem.

I'd appreciate it if you could share a tentative roadmap for this feature. Knowing the expected timeline would be incredibly helpful for planning my projects and for the wider community as we navigate the expanding landscape of cross-chain development.

Thank you for considering these enhancements to serve the growing cross-chain development community. We greatly appreciate your efforts. 🙇‍♂️

[fvictorio]

Hi @npty, thanks for writing this. Right now we are focusing on rethnet, which is our re-write of the Hardhat network in rust for performance, extensibility and portability. Our current plan is to wait for that to be merged in main before doing the separation of runner and network (otherwise we would be making two extremely disruptive changes in parallel which... is not a good idea).

But I agree that it's very important, and I hope we can work on this soon.

[Whytecrowe]

Are there any news on this? Is there a better place to track progress on this or is it mostly this issue? Huge thanks for doing this, by the way!

[kanej]

Are there any news on this? Is there a better place to track progress on this or is it mostly this issue? Huge thanks for doing this, by the way!

That is a good question. Our re-write of Hardhat network in rust is available on the main branch now. This issue is the one to monitor to track our progress in separating out network and runner. We will update here, a pointer to a new tracking structure if one gets put in place.