anvil

NAME

anvil - Create a local testnet node for deploying and testing smart contracts. It can also be used to fork other EVM compatible networks.

SYNOPSIS

anvil [options]

DESCRIPTION

Create a local testnet node for deploying and testing smart contracts. It can also be used to fork other EVM compatible networks.

This section covers an extensive list of information about Mining Modes, Supported Transport Layers, Supported RPC Methods, Anvil flags and their usages. You can run multiple flags at the same time.

Mining Modes

Mining modes refer to how frequent blocks are mined using Anvil. By default, it automatically generates a new block as soon as a transaction is submitted.

You can change this setting to interval mining if you will, which means that a new block will be generated in a given period of time selected by the user. If you want to go for this type of mining, you can do it by adding the --block-time <block-time-in-seconds> flag, like in the following example.

# Produces a new block every 10 seconds
anvil --block-time 10

There’s also a third mining mode called never. In this case, it disables auto and interval mining, and mine on demand instead. You can do this by typing:

# Enables never mining mode
anvil --no-mining

To speed up the finalization of blocks, you can use the --slots-in-an-epoch flag with a value of 1 for example. This will lead to the block at height N-2 being finalized, where N is the latest block.

Supported Transport Layers

HTTP and Websocket connections are supported. The server listens on port 8545 by default, but it can be changed by running the following command:

anvil --port <PORT>

Default CREATE2 Deployer

Anvil, when used without forking, includes the default CREATE2 deployer proxy at the address 0x4e59b44847b379578588920ca78fbf26c0b4956c.

This allows you to test CREATE2 deployments locally without forking.

Supported RPC Methods

Standard Methods

The standard methods are based on this reference.

  • web3_clientVersion

  • web3_sha3

  • eth_chainId

  • eth_networkId

  • eth_gasPrice

  • eth_accounts

  • eth_blockNumber

  • eth_getBalance

  • eth_getStorageAt

  • eth_getBlockByHash

  • eth_getBlockByNumber

  • eth_getTransactionCount

  • eth_getBlockTransactionCountByHash

  • eth_getBlockTransactionCountByNumber

  • eth_getUncleCountByBlockHash

  • eth_getUncleCountByBlockNumber

  • eth_getCode

  • eth_sign

  • eth_signTypedData_v4

  • eth_sendTransaction

  • eth_sendRawTransaction

  • eth_call

  • eth_createAccessList

  • eth_estimateGas

  • eth_getTransactionByHash

  • eth_getTransactionByBlockHashAndIndex

  • eth_getTransactionByBlockNumberAndIndex

  • eth_getTransactionReceipt

  • eth_getUncleByBlockHashAndIndex

  • eth_getUncleByBlockNumberAndIndex

  • eth_getLogs

  • eth_newFilter

  • eth_getFilterChanges

  • eth_newBlockFilter

  • eth_newPendingTransactionFilter

  • eth_getFilterLogs

  • eth_uninstallFilter

  • eth_getWork

  • eth_subscribe

  • eth_unsubscribe

  • eth_syncing

  • eth_submitWork

  • eth_submitHashrate

  • eth_feeHistory

  • eth_getProof

  • debug_traceTransaction Use anvil --steps-tracing to get structLogs

  • debug_traceCall Note that non-standard traces are not yet supported. This means you can’t pass any arguments to the trace parameter.

  • trace_transaction

  • trace_block

Custom Methods

The anvil_* namespace is an alias for hardhat. For more info, refer to the Hardhat documentation.

anvil_impersonateAccount Send transactions impersonating an externally owned account or contract.

anvil_stopImpersonatingAccount Stops impersonating an account or contract if previously set with anvil_impersonateAccount.

anvil_autoImpersonateAccount Accepts true to enable auto impersonation of accounts, and false to disable it. When enabled, any transaction’s sender will be automatically impersonated. Same as anvil_impersonateAccount.

anvil_getAutomine Returns true if automatic mining is enabled, and false if it is not.

anvil_mine Mines a series of blocks.

anvil_dropTransaction Removes transactions from the pool.

anvil_reset Reset the fork to a fresh forked state, and optionally update the fork config.

anvil_setRpcUrl Sets the backend RPC URL.

anvil_setBalance Modifies the balance of an account.

anvil_setCode Sets the code of a contract.

anvil_setNonce Sets the nonce of an address.

anvil_setStorageAt Writes a single slot of the account’s storage.

anvil_setCoinbase Sets the coinbase address.

anvil_setLoggingEnabled Enable or disable logging.

anvil_setMinGasPrice Set the minimum gas price for the node.

anvil_setNextBlockBaseFeePerGas Sets the base fee of the next block.

anvil_setChainId Sets the chain ID of the current EVM instance.

anvil_dumpState Returns a hex string representing the complete state of the chain. Can be re-imported into a fresh/restarted instance of Anvil to reattain the same state.

anvil_loadState When given a hex string previously returned by anvil_dumpState, merges the contents into the current chain state. Will overwrite any colliding accounts/storage slots.

anvil_nodeInfo Retrieves the configuration params for the currently running Anvil node.

Special Methods

The special methods come from Ganache. You can take a look at the documentation here.

evm_setAutomine Enables or disables, based on the single boolean argument, the automatic mining of new blocks with each new transaction submitted to the network.

evm_setIntervalMining Sets the mining behavior to interval with the given interval (seconds).

evm_snapshot Snapshot the state of the blockchain at the current block.

evm_revert Revert the state of the blockchain to a previous snapshot. Takes a single parameter, which is the snapshot id to revert to.

evm_increaseTime Jump forward in time by the given amount of time, in seconds.

evm_setNextBlockTimestamp Similar to evm_increaseTime but takes the exact timestamp that you want in the next block.

anvil_setBlockTimestampInterval Similar to evm_increaseTime but sets a block timestamp interval. The timestamp of the next block will be computed as lastBlock_timestamp + interval.

evm_setBlockGasLimit Sets the block gas limit for the following blocks.

anvil_removeBlockTimestampInterval Removes an anvil_setBlockTimestampInterval if it exists.

evm_mine Mine a single block.

anvil_enableTraces Turn on call traces for transactions that are returned to the user when they execute a transaction (instead of just txhash/receipt).

eth_sendUnsignedTransaction Execute a transaction regardless of signature status.

For the next three methods, make sure to read Geth’s documentation.

txpool_status Returns the number of transactions currently pending for inclusion in the next block(s), as well as the ones that are being scheduled for future execution only.

txpool_inspect Returns a summary of all the transactions currently pending for inclusion in the next block(s), as well as the ones that are being scheduled for future execution only.

txpool_content Returns the details of all transactions currently pending for inclusion in the next block(s), as well as the ones that are being scheduled for future execution only.

Otterscan Methods

The ots_* namespace implements the Otterscan specification.

ots_getApiLevel Used by Otterscan to check if it's connecting to a compatible node and display a friendly message if it is not.

ots_getInternalOperations Returns the internal ETH transfers inside a transaction.

ots_hasCode Check if a certain address contains a deployed code.

ots_getTransactionError Extract the transaction raw error output.

ots_traceTransaction Extract all variations of calls, contract creation and self-destructs and returns a call tree.

ots_getBlockDetails Tailor-made and expanded version of eth_getBlock* for block details page in Otterscan.

ots_getBlockTransactions Get paginated transactions for a certain block, And removes some verbose fields such logs.

ots_searchTransactionsBefore Gets paginated inbound/outbound transaction calls for a certain address, and before a given target block.

ots_searchTransactionsAfter Gets paginated inbound/outbound transaction calls for a certain address, and after a given target block.

ots_getTransactionBySenderAndNonce Gets the transaction hash for a certain sender address, given its nonce.

ots_getContractCreator Gets the transaction hash and the address which created a contract.

OPTIONS

General Options

-a, --accounts <ACCOUNTS>      Set the number of accounts. [default: 10]

--auto-impersonate      Enable autoImpersonate on startup.

-b, --block-time <block-time>      Block time in seconds for interval mining.

--balance <BALANCE>      Set the balance of the accounts. [default: 10000]

--derivation-path <DERIVATION_PATH>      Set the derivation path of the child key to be derived. [default: m/44’/60’/0’/0/]

-h, --help      Print help information.

--hardfork <HARDFORK>      Choose the EVM hardfork to use e.g. shanghai, paris, london, etc… [default: latest]

--init <PATH>      Initialize the genesis block with the given genesis.json file.

-m, --mnemonic <MNEMONIC>      BIP39 mnemonic phrase used for generating accounts.

--no-mining      Disable auto and interval mining, and mine on demand instead.

--order <ORDER>      How transactions are sorted in the mempool. [default: fees]

-p, --port <PORT>      Port number to listen on. [default: 8545]

--steps-tracing      Enable steps tracing used for debug calls returning geth-style traces. [aliases: tracing]

--ipc [<PATH>]      Starts an IPC endpoint at the given PATH argument or the default path: unix: tmp/anvil.ipc, windows: \\.\pipe\anvil.ipc.

--silent      Don’t print anything on startup.

--timestamp <TIMESTAMP>      Set the timestamp of the genesis block.

-V, --version      Print version information.

--disable-default-create2-deployer      Disables deploying the default CREATE2 factory when running Anvil without forking.

EVM Options

-f, --fork-url <URL>      Fetch state over a remote endpoint instead of starting from an empty state.

--fork-block-number <BLOCK>      Fetch state from a specific block number over a remote endpoint (Must pass --fork-url in the same command-line).

--fork-retry-backoff <BACKOFF>      Initial retry backoff on encountering errors.

--retries <retries>      Number of retry requests for spurious networks (timed out requests). [default: 5]

--timeout <timeout>      Timeout in ms for requests sent to remote JSON-RPC server in forking mode. [default: 45000]

--compute-units-per-second <CUPS>      Sets the number of assumed available compute units per second for this provider. [default: 330]      See also, Alchemy Ratelimits.

--no-rate-limit      Disables rate limiting for this node’s provider. Will always override --compute-units-per-second if present. [default: false]      See also, Alchemy Ratelimits.

--no-storage-caching      Disables RPC caching; all storage slots are read from the endpoint. This flag overrides the project’s configuration file (Must pass –fork-url in the same command-line).

Executor Environment Config

--base-fee <FEE> --block-base-fee-per-gas <FEE>      The base fee in a block.

--chain-id <CHAIN_ID>      The chain ID. [default: 31337]

--code-size-limit <CODE_SIZE>      EIP-170: Contract code size limit in bytes. Useful to increase for tests. [default: 0x6000 (~25kb)]

--gas-limit <GAS_LIMIT>      The block gas limit.

--gas-price <GAS_PRICE>      The gas price.

Server Options

--allow-origin <allow-origin>      Set the CORS allow_origin. [default: *]

--no-cors      Disable CORS.

--host <HOST>      The IP address the server will listen on.

--config-out <OUT_FILE>      Writes output of anvil as json to user-specified file.

--prune-history      Don’t keep full chain history.

EXAMPLES

  1. Set the number of accounts to 15 and their balance to 300 ETH
anvil --accounts 15 --balance 300
  1. Choose the address which will execute the tests
anvil --sender 0xC8479C45EE87E0B437c09d3b8FE8ED14ccDa825E
  1. Change how transactions are sorted in the mempool to FIFO
anvil --order fifo

Shell Completions

anvil completions shell

Generates a shell completions script for the given shell.

Supported shells are:

  • bash
  • elvish
  • fish
  • powershell
  • zsh

EXAMPLES

  1. Generate shell completions script for zsh: 
    anvil completions zsh > $HOME/.oh-my-zsh/completions/_anvil

Usage within Docker

In order to run anvil as a service in Github Actions with the Docker container, where passing arguments to the entrypoint command is not possible, use the ANVIL_IP_ADDR environment variable to set the host’s IP. ANVIL_IP_ADDR=0.0.0.0 is equivalent to providing the --host <ip> option.

Using genesis.json

The genesis.json file in Anvil serves a similar purpose as in Geth, defining the network’s initial state, consensus rules, and preallocated accounts to ensure all nodes start consistently and maintain network integrity. All values, including balance, gas limit and such, are to be defined as hexadecimals.

  • chainId: Identifier for the blockchain, unique to each network.
  • nonce: A counter used in hashing algorithms to ensure data integrity.
  • timestamp: The creation time of the genesis block in Unix time.
  • extraData: Additional data that can be included by the creator of the genesis block.
  • gasLimit: The maximum amount of gas that can be used in the block.
  • difficulty: A measure of how difficult it is to mine a new block.
  • mixHash: A unique identifier proving a sufficient amount of computation for the block.
  • coinbase: The Ethereum address of the miner who mined this block.
  • stateRoot: The root of the state trie, reflecting the final state after all transactions.
  • alloc: Allows pre-allocating Ether to a set of addresses with predefined balances.
  • number: The block number, with the genesis block being 0.
  • gasUsed: The total gas used in the block.
  • parentHash: The hash of the parent block, all zeros for the genesis block since there is no parent.

A sample for simulating mainnet via genesis can be found here.

{
  "chainId": "0x2323",
  "nonce": "0x42",
  "timestamp": "0x0",
  "extraData": "0x11bbe8db4e347b4e8c937c1c8370e4b5ed33adb3db69cbdb7a38e1e50b1b82fa",
  "gasLimit": "0x1388",
  "difficulty": "0x400000000",
  "mixHash": "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000",
  "coinbase": "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000",
  "stateRoot": "0xd7f8974fb5ac78d9ac099b9ad5018bedc2ce0a72dad1827a1709da30580f0544",
  "alloc": {
    "000d836201318ec6899a67540690382780743280": {
      "balance": "0xad78ebc5ac6200000"
    }
  },
  "number": "0x0",
  "gasUsed": "0x0",
  "parentHash": "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000"
}