Hardhat is a smart contract development framework and EVM tooling suite designed for the full lifecycle of Ethereum and EVM-compatible applications. It serves as a development environment for compiling, testing, and deploying smart contracts, providing a local blockchain simulation and a programmable task runner.
The framework is distinguished by its extensive simulation capabilities, including the ability to fork remote network state and manipulate block time or account balances. It features a hook-based plugin system that allows for the extension of core functionality and the creation of custom command-line tasks.
The project covers a broad range of capabilities including automated deployment orchestration with state journaling, multi-language testing with gas analysis and code coverage, and deep execution debugging through transaction tracing. It also manages the compilation process with support for multiple compiler versions and generates type-safe bindings for contract interactions.
The environment is primarily implemented in TypeScript.
