ZetaChain

ZetaChain is an EVM-compatible L1 blockchain that enables omnichain, generic smart contracts and messaging between any blockchain.

Prerequisites

• Go 1.20
• Docker and Docker Compose (optional, for running tests locally)
• buf (optional, for processing protocol buffer files)
• jq (optional, for running scripts)

Components of ZetaChain

ZetaChain is built with Cosmos SDK, a modular framework for building blockchain and Ethermint, a module that implements EVM-compatibility.

• zeta-node (this repository) contains the source code for the ZetaChain node (zetacored) and the ZetaChain client (zetaclientd).
• protocol-contracts contains the source code for the Solidity smart contracts that implement the core functionality of ZetaChain.

Building the zetacored/zetaclientd binaries

For the Athens 3 testnet, clone this repository, checkout the latest release tag, and type the following command to build the binaries:

make install-testnet

to build.

This command will install the zetacored and zetaclientd binaries in your $GOPATH/bin directory.

Verify that the version of the binaries match the release tag.

zetacored version
zetaclientd version

Making changes to the source code

After making changes to any of the protocol buffer files, run the following command to generate the Go files:

make proto

This command will use buf to generate the Go files from the protocol buffer files and move them to the correct directories inside x/. It will also generate an OpenAPI spec.

Generate documentation

To generate the documentation, run the following command:

make specs

This command will run a script to update the modules' documentation. The script uses static code analysis to read the protocol buffer files and identify all Cosmos SDK messages. It then searches the source code for the corresponding message handler functions and retrieves the documentation for those functions. Finally, it creates a messages.md file for each module, which contains the documentation for all the messages in that module.

Running tests

To check that the source code is working as expected, refer to the manual on how to run the smoke test.

Community

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Creating a Release for Mainnet

Creating a release for mainnet is a straightforward process. Here are the steps to follow:

Steps

• Step 1. Open a Pull Request (PR): Begin by opening a PR from the release candidate branch (e.g., vx.x.x-rc) to the main branch.
• Step 2. Testing and Validation: Allow the automated tests, including smoke tests, linting, and upgrade path testing, to run. Ensure that these tests pass successfully.
• Step 3. Approval Process: Obtain the necessary approvals from relevant stakeholders or team members.
• Step 4. Merging PR: Once all requirements have been met and the PR has received the required approvals, merge the PR. The automation will then be triggered to proceed with the release.

By following these steps, you can efficiently create a release for Mainnet, ensuring that the code has been thoroughly tested and validated before deployment.

Creating a Release for Testnet

Creating a release for testnet is a straightforward process. Here are the steps to follow:

Steps

• Step 1. Create the release candidate branch with the following format (e.g., vx.x.x-rc) ex. v11.0.0-rc.
• Step 2. Once a RC branch is created the automation will kickoff to build and upload the release and its binaries.

By following these steps, you can efficiently create a release candidate for testnet for QA and validation. In the future we will make this automatically deploy to testnet when a -rc branch is created. Currently, raising the proposal to deploy to testnet is a manual process via GitHub Action pipeline located in the infrastructure repo.