Setup

AssemblyScript

Before reading this document, you need to have programming foundation in AssemblyScript or Typescript.

Install AssemblyScript & Ask!

Since AssemblyScript and Ask! are provided as npm dependencies. Developers only need to use the package manager yarn or npm to install it, and it's recommended to always use the latest version, but currently Ask! only supports assemblyscript v0.19:

{
    ...
    "dependencies": {
        "ask-lang": "^0.4.0-rc3"
    },
    "devDependencies": {
        "ask-transform": "^0.4.0-rc3",
        "assemblyscript": "^0.19"
    },
    ...
}

Note: The ask-lang won't automatically import the ask-transform, which is the Ask! plugin for AssemblyScript.

Configuration

AssemblyScript supports command line parameters (asc <options>) and the configuration file (asc --config <file>) to compile AssemblyScript projects. It is recommended that developers always use the configuration file asconfig.json to compile smart contracts.

A simple asconfig.json template is as follows, this template inherits the configuration of ask-lang, which provides a reasonable configuration that developers can also override.

{
    "extends": "ask-lang/asconfig.json",
    "targets": {
        "debug": {
            "binaryFile": "build/debug.wasm",
            "textFile": "build/debug.wat"
        },
        "release": {
            "binaryFile": "build/release.wasm",
            "textFile": "build/release.wat"
        }
    }
}

Current ask-lang/asconfig.json:

{
    "targets": {
        "debug": {
            "sourceMap": true,
            "debug": true
        },
        "release": {
            "sourceMap": false,
            "optimizeLevel": 3,
            "shrinkLevel": 2,
            "converge": false,
            "noAssert": false
        }
    },
    "options": {
        "transform": ["ask-transform", "as-serde-transform"],
        "importMemory": true,
        "initialMemory": 2,
        "maximumMemory": 16,
        "noExportMemory": true,
        "runtime": "stub",
        "use": "abort=",
        "disable": ["Sign-extension"]
    }
}

The most important and basic configuration for AssemblyScript compiler plugins is the transform option. You need to add the following configuration to asconfig.json to make AssemblyScript use the Ask! plugins.

Note that the order of the two plugins here. Since the ask-transform plugin automatically generates the as-serde (used for contract encoding/decoding) decorators internally, and Ask! relies on the as-serde-transform plugin to process these decorators again, so ask-transform must be placed before as-serde-transform.

{
    ...
    "options": {
        "transform": ["ask-transform", "as-serde-transform"],
        ... // other options here
    }
}

In addition to the above configuration, you also need to configure reasonable compilation options so that the generated wasm can be deployed normally:

{
    ...
    "options": {
        ... // other options here
        "importMemory": true,
        "initialMemory": 2,
        "maximumMemory": 16,
        "noExportMemory": true,
        // no runtime
        "runtime": "stub",
        "use": "abort=",
        // pallet-contracts do not support any wasm extension now
        "disable": ["Sign-extension"]
    }
}