🌋 E|F ➾ Michelson Developer Support

[hu3man]

Product Board Link

Product Board Ticket

🚥 Status

• 🔮 Product/Feature Design
• ✍🏻 Architecture/Implementation Planning
• 🏗️ Under Construction
• ⛳ Feature Complete
• ⛵ GTM / Release

✅ To Do

• Implement MVP of generator and integrate with Taqueria VsCE (d: @ archaephyrryx)
• Investigate feasibility of using an LSP server (oOcaml implementation) which reads a Michelson smart contract and allows the user to provide initial storage and then step through the code execution with a graphical display of the stack contents (debugger)
• Investigate and discover what features an LSP server would enable
• Investigate morley debugger (vsce plugin)
• Investigate the difficulty and lift required to onboard @jchenche with Coq formal verification and what Taqueria support for this might look like

Sequencing of Work:

1. Iterate on Michelson syntax highlighting till full coverage
2. Add additional features for tooltips and highlighting via an LSP server
3. Implement a Michelson debugger

https://code.visualstudio.com/api/language-extensions/syntax-highlight-guide

Determine Between:

• Fastest option: script-based parser/processor outputting a text file (MVP) - would require script to be working but wouldn't be fully featured at first, iterative approach
• Best approach: Integrating the processor into the compiler - higher upfront cost but would be usable in production when done

Both options will result in the same end result, difference is in development methodology

Notes

• Possible to programmatically generate syntax/grammar definition file with rich context (history, deprecations, etc)
• Will generate a set of keywords based on the current implementation of the protocol
• Need a machine/instance set up which will do the generation of grammar files (ideally triggered and included as part of CI or release)
• Setup (linking) is non-trivial
• Lexical rules can be used for syntax highlighting (constructors, types, instructions)
• Deprecation and kind/type can be generated based on real-world knowledge
• Determining operator specifics would need to be done by hand as there's no semantic approach for determining the difference between two operators
• Primitives.ts file can be used to provide insights into what tokens are primitives (tooltip hints)
• Can capture the historical changes in types, operators, instructions - deprecations, name/behaviour changes, etc and provide context for what changed and when

Michelson Debugger

There's a web based Michelson debugger thingy here: https://try-michelson.com/
The source code for that web front end is here: https://gitlab.com/nomadic-labs/try-michelson
That front end relies on the "tezos-lang-server" here: https://gitlab.com/nomadic-labs/tezos-lang-server/

📐 Feature Description

This epic covers all the work required to provide first-class support for Michelson developers in Taqueria

🚩 Problem or Use Case

Taqueria needs to have first-class support for working with Michelson files. This applies both to developers writing Michelson directly, but also to those who may have less experience and want to play around with and explore existing Michelson contracts

This is also a M3 deliverable

⚖️ Acceptance Criteria

✨ Features:

• Users can add Michelson contracts to /contracts and have Taqueria understand how to edit and originate it
• Taqueria supports static analysis of Michelson files
• VsCE provides syntax highlighting for Michelson files
• VsCE provides tooltip hints describing protocol defined types and functions (Typedoc style)
• Support for autoformatting of michelson source code
• Users can interact with deployed Michelson contracts (Micheline editor)
• Users can easily specify initial storage for a Michelson contract upon origination (extension of Micheline editor)

📚 Docs:

• Conceptual doc covering the high level Michelson development workflow
• Docs for each feature above

🔭 Scope

🏎️ In Scope:

• ...

🙅‍♂️ Out of Scope:

• ...

🔗 Related Issues and Subtasks

• 🚧 Dev ➾ Support Ligo and Michelson Syntax Highlighting in VScE #1330
• 🚧 Dev ➾ Syntax highlighting of Michelson in VS Code #1564
• 🚧 Dev ➾ Investigate Features that a Michelson LSP Server for VsCE would Provide #1565

🦄 Sizing

37

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct