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Middleware

For any dApp to provide good UX, you need a solution that quickly loads the data stored on chain and on IPFS. Querying data directly from blockchain is complex. This is where the middleware comes in, which is essentially a layer in between blockchain and your dApp, allowing you to index and query your blockchain data easily and efficiently.

SettleMint offers two Middleware solutions: The Graph Middleware (for all EVM-compatible chains) and Hyperledger Besu Middleware.

Adding a middleware​

Before adding a middleware make sure that you have installed smart contract sets and IPFS (decentralized) storage

Navigate to the application where you want to add a middleware. Click Middleware in the left navigation, and then click Add a middleware. This opens a form.

Follow these steps to add the middleware:

  1. Select to which of your smart contract sets the middleware needs to connect, and click Continue.
  2. Choose Graph Middleware or Hyperledger Besu Middleware
  3. Choose a Middleware name. Choose one that will be easily recognizable in your dashboards.
  4. Select the storage provider
  5. Choose a deployment plan. Select the type, cloud provider, region and resource pack. More about deployment plans.
  6. You see the resource cost for this middleware displayed at the bottom of the form. Click Confirm to add the smart contract set.

When the middleware is deployed, click it from the list and start using it.

The Graph Middleware​

The Graph is a protocol for indexing and querying blockchain data from networks. It can be used with all EVM-compatible chains like Ethereum, Hyperledger Besu, Polygon, Binance Smart Chain and Avalanche. You can run it on your own blockchain nodes (both public and permissioned) and IPFS nodes.

Using the Graph protocol, you can create subgraphs that define which blockchain data will be indexed. These subgraphs are defined in the smart contract set and deployed to the middleware. The middleware will then use these subgraphs to correctly index your smart contracts and expose a developer-friendly and efficient GraphQL API, allowing you to query the data you need.

The middleware is fully preconfigured and integrated with the smart contract sets. We have some prebuild subgraph indexing modules, but you can build your own modules if you have a custom smart contract set.

Warning

Before you start, make sure you are running:

  • An EVM-compatible network (Ethereum, Polygon, Hyperleder Besu, Binance Smart Chain or Avalanche)
  • A smart contract set with a deployed smart contract
  • An IPFS node
  • A private key

When the middleware is deployed, follow these steps to start using it:

Define and deploy a subgraph​

Navigate to the smart contract set that you connected to the middleware, go the details and open the IDE. Here you will define the subgraph to set the indexing specifications, and deploy it so it can be loaded into the middleware.

Subgraph raw configuration​

Inside the root you will find a file called subgraph.config.template.json that contains the raw configuration of the subgraph. The important section is the datasources section.

  • Name - here we defined the smart contracts with their name (the name of the artifact created in the 'deployments' folder when running the deploy task)
  • Address & Startblock - You will notice the startblock and address to be 0. These will be filled in using the graph:config task based on the hardhat deployments.
  • Module - In the modules array all the indexing modules to activate for this smart contract.

About the indexing modules​

We provide two libraries of indexing modules: one by the OpenZeppelin team for all the common smart contracts in their smart contract library, and one by the SettleMint team to extend the capabilities of the OpenZeppelin one, and to provide indexing of the specific SettleMint smart contract sets.

The OpenZeppelin set contains the following indexing modules:

  • accesscontrol
  • erc1155
  • erc1967upgrade
  • erc20
  • erc721
  • governor
  • ownable
  • pausable
  • timelock
  • voting

The SettleMint set contains the following indexing modules:

  • erc721ipfs: to extend the ERC-721 from OpenZeppelin to index IPFS metadata of your ERC-721 tokens
  • crowdsale/vestingvault/vestingwallet: to index and expose all the data for the crowdsale contract set
  • forwarder: for the ERC-20 Meta transactions forwarder data
  • statemachinemetadata: to index IPFS metadata for state machines

These are available in the subgraph folder in your IDE. You can create your own modules for any other data you want to index, or for custom smart contracts not part of the default sets. And you can modify the existing ones if you want to index things a bit different.

Write your own indexing module​

You can also write your own custom indexing module for smart contracts that are not part of the default sets.

Follow these steps to create a custom indexing module:

  • Primitives to generate a GraphQL schema: subgraph/datasource/x.gql.json - In order to allow composability, the schema are not defined in the GraphQL format but rather in a dedicated JSON format which is can be assembled and compiled to GraphQL.
  • Template to generate a subgraph manifest: subgraph/datasource/x.yaml - This file lists all the events that the datasources should listen to, and links that to the corresponding indexing logic.
  • Indexing logic: subgraph/datasources/x.ts and (optionally) subgraph/fetch/x.ts - This is the core logic that processes the events and to index the onchain activity.

To learn more, check it out on Github.

Tweak the subgraph configuration​

You can tweak the subgraph.config.template.json file to your liking, and run the graph:config task. This will generate subgraph.config.json for the next steps.

The following tasks need to be run in this sequence:

  • graph:compile - Uses subgraph.config.json to generate the GraphQL schema and subgraph configuration.
  • graph:codegen - Generates the AssemblyScript types for your contracts ABI based on the output of graph:compile.
  • graph:build - Compiles the WASM files based on the outputs generated by graph:codegen.
  • graph:deploy - Deploys the WASM files to IPFS and updates the middleware to start or update the indexing.

To make this a bit easier, the graph:all task executes all these steps in the right order.

The indexing of your smart contracts has now started. This can take a while, but once done you can query the middleware for your data in seconds using the GraphQL API. You can find the endpoint in the Connect-tab.

The Hyperledger Besu Middleware​

Documentation will be online soon.