Sails: Build Scalable & Parallel Smart Contracts on Vara Network

What is Sails?

Sails is a library designed to elevate the experience of developing applications with Gear Protocol, placing a strong emphasis on simplicity and clarity. It removes the need to write low-level boilerplate code with gstd, allowing developers to focus on business challenges. Additionally, Sails automatically generates a corresponding Interface Definition Language (IDL) file for the application, which outlines data types, services, constructors, and events in a language-independent format. This IDL file can then be used to automatically generate client code in Rust and TypeScript, facilitating seamless interaction with the application.

Development Workflow

The typical development workflow with the Sails framework consists of the following steps:

• Implement: The program logic is implemented in Rust using the Sails framework.
• Build: The Rust program is compiled into an optimized WebAssembly (WASM) blob. The sails_idl_gen crate is then used to automatically generate a corresponding IDL file for interfacing with the program. Typically, all of these steps are executed automatically with a proper cargo configuration for Sails.
• Deploy: The optimized WASM blob and corresponding IDL file are uploaded to the Vara Network (mainnet or testnet) via the Gear IDEA portal.
• Interact: Interaction with the deployed dApp is carried out either directly through the Gear IDEA portal or by using a Rust/TypeScript client generated from the IDL file.

graph LR
    A[Implement]:::varaStyle;
    B[Build]:::varaStyle;
    C[WASM blob]:::plain;
    D[IDL file]:::plain;
    E[Generate Client]:::varaStyle;
    F[Deploy to Vara Network]:::Vara;
    classDef Vara stroke:#00ffa0,stroke-width:3px;
    classDef varaStyle stroke:#00ffc3;
    classDef plain stroke:#FFFFFF;
    A-->B;
    B-->C;
    B-->D;
    C-->F;
    D-->F;
    D-->E;

To install the latest version of the Sails library, use:

cargo install sails-cli