Publish binaries to NPM

[roninjin10]

Component

Forge

Describe the feature you would like

I would like to be able to download forge as a binary npm package for easier integration into Frontend and Node applications. I am unclear on if it is even possible to package up forge as a standalone binary

Additional context

I would like to be able to download forge as a binary npm package for easier integration into Frontend and Node applications. As an example, if forge is a part of a build pipeline it becomes very awkward to integrate it into a vercel build.

I am happy to contribute to making this happen but I would need some guidance on

1. Is it even possible to package up forge into a binary? Would I have to try to package up foundry-up and then execute foundry-up?
2. A pointer to where to look in foundry to get started

My specific use case is Iam working to build a forge inspired ethers.js alternative. User would be able to write forge scripts. The API is similar to this

import { mutate } from 'ts-sol'
import { TransferEntireBalance } from './ERC20.s.sol'

....

<button onClick={() => mutate(TransferEntireBalance, { signer })} />

I want to reuse forge as much as possible but if I can't find a way to get forge on NPM I'm likely going to be forced to reimplement cheat codes into a javascript based VM or hardhat.

[mattsse]

there's https://github.com/foundry-rs/hardhat/tree/develop/packages/hardhat-forge

and https://github.com/foundry-rs/hardhat/tree/develop/packages/easy-foundryup

[roninjin10]

Interesting I don't think hardhat-forge is super useful. We use that at OP Labs and I believe foundry is still a required dependency for it to work.

Easy foundry-up looks promising though. I will dig into that more later

[roninjin10]

Tried using easy-foundryup in vercel and looks like there are some issues getting foundry to do it's thing on vercel likely because of missing deps in the container

``` foundryup: done -- 09:09:43.978 | forge: /lib64/libm.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.27' not found (required by forge) 09:09:43.978 | forge: /lib64/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.29' not found (required by forge) 09:09:43.979 | forge: /lib64/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.28' not found (required by forge) 09:09:43.979 | forge: /lib64/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.27' not found (required by forge) 09:09:43.981 | ELIFECYCLE  Command failed with exit code 1. 09:09:44.000 | Error: Command "pnpm run build" exited with 1 ```

My guess is they are using an alpine image that doesn't have the necessary deps.

[onbjerg]

Vercel is likely using musl. You either need to install glibc or follow these instructions: https://github.com/foundry-rs/foundry#out-of-date-glibc-error-when-running-forge-from-default-foundryup-install

You will not be able to use Forge as you described in your issue though, as Forge is not distributable on npm and is not importable as a module in JavaScript, as we do not support wasm.

[roninjin10]

@onbjerg you don’t need to be javascript or wasm to be on npm. Any binary can be on npm

[roninjin10]

Also I’m trying to use forge as a build tool. Using it in the browser, that isn’t what I’m trying to do (yet). I am trying to build a way of using forge like cheat codes in the browser but I’m building that myself in top of Ethereum js. Forge is for building contracts at buildtime not runtime though

[onbjerg]

Ah - well, bundling to npm is not on the horizon at the moment (we don't bundle to anywhere yet). You can check the foundry-toolchain repository which contains some JavaScript code to download the latest nightly off of GitHub.

[roninjin10]

Thanks helpful to know the timeline. What I think I will do is use that toolchain to create a NODE18 docker image that anybody can build in for now. It's not perfect, but hopefully works for most folks