web3cli 0.9.6

Interact with blockchains and smart contracts using the command line

Interact with blockchains and smart contracts using the command line.

Features

• Easily interact with EVM-compatible chains using your terminal
• Works with the most popular chains: Ethereum, Binance, Avalanche and more to come
• Save addresses you use often and access them with their tag
• Send transactions from multiple signers
• Concatenate commands to build powerful scripts
• [To be implemented]: Transfer tokens, using the token name (USDC, UNI, WETH, etc) instead of its address.
• [To be implemented]: DeFi support: sell Curve's rewards on Uniswap, setup a DCA plan on TraderJoe, etc.

Install

pip3 install -U web3cli

Simple examples

• Add chains before using them:

  w3 db chain add ethereum 1 ETH --tx-type 2 --rpc https://cloudflare-eth.com 
  w3 db chain add binance 56 BNB --rpc https://bsc-dataseed.binance.org/
  w3 db chain add avalanche 43114 --rpc https://api.avax.network/ext/bc/C/rpc
  

  ... or import them in one go:

  w3 db chain seed
  

• Get the ETH balance of the Ethereum foundation:

  w3 --chain ethereum balance 0xde0b295669a9fd93d5f28d9ec85e40f4cb697bae
  

  ... or the BNB balance of a Binance hot wallet on BNB chain:

  w3 --chain binance balance 0x8894e0a0c962cb723c1976a4421c95949be2d4e3
  

• Tired of using the --chain argument? Set a default chain:

  w3 config set default_chain ethereum
  w3 balance 0xde0b295669a9fd93d5f28d9ec85e40f4cb697bae
  

• Tired of pasting addresses around? Save them with an easy to remember name:

  w3 db address add ethereum-foundation 0xde0b295669a9fd93d5f28d9ec85e40f4cb697bae
  w3 balance ethereum-foundation
  

• Want to send transactions? Add a signer:

  w3 db signer add my-wallet
  

  You will be asked for a private key, which will be saved on disk in encrypted form.

• Once you have a signer, you can send 1 ETH to the Ethereum foundation:

  w3 send ethereum-foundation 1 ETH
  

  or maybe it's better to send just 1 gwei:

  w3 send ethereum-foundation 1 ETH gwei
  

• Need to sign a message? This will print the whole signed message:

  w3 sign "Hello world!"
  

Address book

w3 can store tags just like you would do on etherscan.io or bscscan.com:

w3 db address add "Ethereum foundation" 0xde0b295669a9fd93d5f28d9ec85e40f4cb697bae
w3 db address add "Binance hot wallet" 0x8894e0a0c962cb723c1976a4421c95949be2d4e3

You can use these tags instead of the actual addresses:

w3 balance "Ethereum foundation"
w3 --chain binance balance "Binance hot wallet"

To see the list of saved addresses, run:

w3 db address list

which will produce the following output:

| LABEL               | ADDRESS                                    |
|---------------------+--------------------------------------------|
| Binance hot wallet  | 0x8894e0a0c962cb723c1976a4421c95949be2d4e3 |
| Ethereum foundation | 0xde0b295669a9fd93d5f28d9ec85e40f4cb697bae |

To see all the actions that can be done with addresses, run w3 db address.

Sign & send

You can use web3cli to send transactions to the blockchain or to sign messages. To do so, you first need to define a signer:

w3 db signer add my_signer

You will be prompted to insert a private key, which will be encrypted and stored in the database. Feel free to do so with this test private key: d94e4166f0b3c85ffebed3e0eaa7f7680ae296cf8a7229d637472b7452c8602c.

You can also create a brand new wallet on the go, without the need to provide a key:

w3 db signer add my-wallet --create

Examples

Once you have added a signer, you can use any of the commands that need a private key, as shown in the following examples.

Sign a message:

w3 sign "Hello world!"

Output:

{'messageHash': HexBytes('0x8144a6fa26be252b86456491fbcd43c1de7e022241845ffea1c3df066f7cfede'),
 'r': 29064792366355323740950985371105895961858398238980883773193501881276705228481,
 's': 35017827091540952858431223849020104301448914783999277111090808754042212439431,
 'signature': HexBytes('0x404216ea232b5289610a7483de746fed3c94b6e6c2b8bf62ce5286850ff346c14d6b63445107a9d9e342720e88e82a3ff794dd6bd255931b552dedf2e243d5871c'),
 'v': 28}

Send ETH, BNB, AVAX, etc:

This is to be implemented yet, but the idea is to send funds with the following command:

w3 send <address> 0.001 ETH

where address is either an address from the address book, or a 0x.. hex string.

Multiple signers

Add more signers with w3 db signer add and select which one to use with the --signer flag:

w3 --signer my_signer <command>
w3 -s my_signer <command> # short version

If you plan to use the same signer for a while, make it the default signer with the command:

w3 config set default_signer my_signer

Settings

Settings are read from the configuration file ~/.web3cli/config/web3cli.yaml, or from environment variables. (The symbol ~ refers to the home folder of your user.) See the example configuration file for a list of available settings.

Environment variables

All settings can be overridden via environment variables. For example, the settings web3cli.default_chain can be overridden by setting the env variable WEB3CLI_DEFAULT_CHAIN:

WEB3CLI_DEFAULT_CHAIN=avalanche w3 db chain get

output> avalanche

Folder-specific settings

To have settings that apply only to the current folder, create a web3cli.yaml file in that folder and execute w3 from that folder.

Settings specified in web3cli.yaml will override those in your home folder. Environment variables will still get the precedence.

Edit configuration via the CLI

You can edit the configuration files using w3 config. For example:

• Show the value of a single setting:

  pdm w3 config get default_chain
  

• Show all settings:

  pdm w3 config get
  

• Edit a setting value at the global level (~/.web3cli/database/web3cli.sqlite):

  pdm w3 config set default_chain avalanche
  

• Edit a setting value at the local level (web3cli.yml):

  pdm w3 config set default_chain avalanche --no-global
  

Contribute ❤️

Pull requests are welcome!

1. Install and configure PDM:

   curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pdm-project/pdm/main/install-pdm.py | python3 -
   

2. Install dependencies:

   pdm install
   

3. To run the CLI against your changes:

   pdm w3 <command>
   

Tests

To run tests, first install ganache on at least node 18, then run:

pdm test

Acknowledgements

Thank you very much to the web3.py and brownie teams: web3 would not exist without your efforts!

TODO

• Define command shortcuts using argparse aliases, e.g. w3 add-chain instead of w3 db chain add
• Use different db file for dev environment
• README: Explain json output + trick | python3 -mjson.tool
• Implement w3 block
• Implement w3 tx fetch
• Move tests/seeder to core (in models?)
• Tests: use london hardfork instead of istanbul?
• Send command: option to wait for receipt
• Retry transactions until gas fee goes below x gwei
• README badges: web3.py, brownie, PDM, cement
• Resolve address should look also in signature names (make signer & address names unique?)
• Address book: helper method to un-resolve address (from 0x to name, if it exists), useful for w3 tx list
• Rpc: check that chain's chain_id in DB corresponds to chain_id of RPC
• Chain: Preload chains from https://chainid.network/chains.json
• Command: w3 init to import chain + add signer
• Windows: test on a Windows machine
• Do not mess with DB unless needed by the command
• Do not mess with signers unless needed by the command
• Autocomplete commands
• Tests: should we change evm_version in ganache for non-ethereum chains? (see CLI_FLAGS brownie/network/rpc/ganache.py)
• Autocomplete addresses and signers
• Config: non-string support in config set
• Gas: Upper limit on basefee via global argument/setting
• Dry-run: Print tx instead of sending it, via global argument/setting
• Use chains and tokens from other sources (e.g. ethereum-lists)
• ethPM registry / etherscan to pull smart contract interfaces? E.g. https://eth-brownie.readthedocs.io/en/latest/core-contracts.html#fetching-from-a-remote-source
• Record transaction in Txs table
• Fix usage message (still refers to web3cli)