refactor!: dropping PXE JSON RPC by benesjan · Pull Request #17228 · AztecProtocol/aztec-packages

benesjan · 2025-09-23T12:02:59Z

PXE is becoming just a lib used by the wallet and for this reason I am dropping the corresponding JSON RPC Server.

This leads to a large refactor of basically all the setups that dealt with PXE and wallets.

This is a followup work of this PR in which I had this tasks planned:

Drop PXE JSON RPC server,
have Wallet instantiate PXE instead of having it passed in as an arg to a constructor,
revisit the PXE methods exposed on the TestWallet.

In this PR I tackled points 1 and 2.

benesjan · 2025-09-23T12:03:21Z

refactor!: dropping PXE JSON RPC #17228 👈 (View in Graphite)
next

This stack of pull requests is managed by Graphite. Learn more about stacking.

benesjan · 2025-09-23T12:36:38Z

yarn-project/aztec.js/src/wallet/wallet.ts

+const ContractMetadataSchema = z.object({
+  contractInstance: z.union([ContractInstanceWithAddressSchema, z.undefined()]),
+  isContractInitialized: z.boolean(),
+  isContractPublished: z.boolean(),
+}) satisfies ZodFor<ContractMetadata>;
+
+const ContractClassMetadataSchema = z.object({
+  contractClass: z.union([ContractClassWithIdSchema, z.undefined()]),
+  isContractClassPubliclyRegistered: z.boolean(),
+  artifact: z.union([ContractArtifactSchema, z.undefined()]),
+}) satisfies ZodFor<ContractClassMetadata>;


This was moved here from PXE as the PXESchema got dropped.

benesjan · 2025-09-23T12:42:01Z

yarn-project/aztec/src/bin/index.ts

  program = injectAztecNodeCommands(program, userLog, debugLogger);
  program = injectMiscCommands(program, userLog);
  program = injectDevnetCommands(program, userLog, debugLogger);
-  program = injectWalletCommands(program, userLog, debugLogger);


Agreed with Grego in DMs that it makes sense to drop the wallet commands from aztec command. Having it on aztec was just a tech debt.

benesjan · 2025-09-24T09:38:56Z

yarn-project/accounts/src/testing/index.ts

- * @param testWalletOrPxe - Test wallet or pxe instance to use to get the registered accounts.
- * @returns A set of key data for each of the initial accounts.
- */
-export async function getDeployedTestAccounts(testWalletOrPxe: { getPxe(): PXE } | PXE): Promise<InitialAccountData[]> {


I replaced this with a registerInitialSandboxAccountsInWallet util that resides in the end-to-end package.

I think I'd be fine with that utility living in the test-wallet package (people will connect the testwallet to sandbox)

benesjan · 2025-09-24T10:05:52Z

yarn-project/cli-wallet/src/utils/wallet.ts

+  // Recently added when having the wallet instantiate PXE as PXE is now hidden. This forced me to expose this when
+  // refactoring `checkTx` cli-wallet command.
+  getContracts(): Promise<AztecAddress[]> {
+    return this.pxe.getContracts();
+  }
+
+  // Recently added when having the wallet instantiate PXE as PXE is now hidden. This forced me to expose this when
+  // refactoring `checkTx` cli-wallet command.
+  getNotes(filter: NotesFilter): Promise<UniqueNote[]> {
+    return this.pxe.getNotes(filter);
+  }
+
+  // Recently added when having the wallet instantiate PXE as PXE is now hidden. This forced me to expose this when
+  // refactoring `bridge_fee_juice` cli-wallet command.
+  // TODO: This should most likely just be refactored to getProtocolContractAddresses.
+  getPXEInfo(): Promise<PXEInfo> {
+    return this.pxe.getPXEInfo();
+  }


WDYT about these commands? Needed to expose them as we had the corresponding commands exposed on the CLI (getNotes was required by inspectTx and it prints out notes emitted in the tx).

As a dev being able to print out contracts and notes when debugging seems pretty useful.

This makes sense in the CLIWallet, since it's just what it does. They do not belong in the public interface though.

benesjan · 2025-09-24T10:06:35Z

yarn-project/cli-wallet/README.md

@@ -1,2 +1,32 @@
 # Aztec wallet Documentation

+### Run tests locally


Grego sent me this through DMs so I made AI generate readme from it.

benesjan · 2025-09-24T10:08:35Z

yarn-project/cli/src/utils/inspect.ts

  }
 }

 export async function inspectTx(


I copied the unpruned version to the cli-wallet. It became less useful here without the private info.

benesjan · 2025-09-24T10:10:10Z

yarn-project/end-to-end/src/bench/client_flows/account_deployments.test.ts

 import { AztecAddress, type DeployOptions, Fr, type Wallet, publishContractClass } from '@aztec/aztec.js';
 import type { SponsoredFPCContract } from '@aztec/noir-contracts.js/SponsoredFPC';
-import type { TestWallet } from '@aztec/test-wallet';
+import type { TestWallet } from '@aztec/test-wallet/server';


In some e2e tests I started getting this error:

so I just decided to have all the e2e tests use the newly introduced server version of TestWallet.

yarn-project/aztec/src/sandbox/banana_fpc.ts

yarn-project/aztec/src/sandbox/sponsored_fpc.ts

benesjan · 2025-09-24T13:40:46Z

yarn-project/end-to-end/src/e2e_p2p/gossip_network.test.ts

    // should be set so that the only way for rollups to be built
    // is if the txs are successfully gossiped around the nodes.
-    const contexts: NodeContext[] = [];
+    const txsSentViaDifferentNodes: SentTx[][] = [];


Here and in the tests that follow I dropped the NodeContext type:

export interface NodeContext { node: AztecNodeService; pxeService: PXEService; txs: SentTx[]; }

because only the txs from it were ever used.

benesjan · 2025-09-24T14:05:00Z

yarn-project/pxe/src/test/pxe_service.test.ts


 import type { PXEServiceConfig } from '../config/index.js';
 import { PXEService } from '../pxe_service/pxe_service.js';
-import { pxeTestSuite } from './pxe_test_suite.js';


In this file I just merged the pxe_test_suite to it and moved the pxe service creation to the beforeAll block.

We had it done like this before because the pxe_test_suite was imported in e2e package.

benesjan · 2025-09-24T14:05:49Z

yarn-project/stdlib/src/interfaces/pxe.test.ts

@@ -1,422 +0,0 @@
-import { L1_TO_L2_MSG_TREE_HEIGHT } from '@aztec/constants';


This was just testing the PXESchema and that schema no longer exists.

yarn-project/stdlib/src/interfaces/pxe.ts

yarn-project/test-wallet/src/wallet/server.ts

docker-compose.yml

Thunkar · 2025-09-24T14:28:19Z

spartan/aztec-network/templates/_helpers.tpl




-{{- define "aztec-network.pxeUrl" -}}


Very scared of this, ping someone from the networks team!

Already let Mitch know about this 👍

Apparently all of this is anyway getting completely refactored soon so seems to be a good time to do this PR.

Thunkar · 2025-09-24T14:29:30Z

yarn-project/accounts/src/testing/index.ts

- * @param testWalletOrPxe - Test wallet or pxe instance to use to get the registered accounts.
- * @returns A set of key data for each of the initial accounts.
- */
-export async function getDeployedTestAccounts(testWalletOrPxe: { getPxe(): PXE } | PXE): Promise<InitialAccountData[]> {


I think I'd be fine with that utility living in the test-wallet package (people will connect the testwallet to sandbox)

yarn-project/aztec/src/sandbox/banana_fpc.ts

Thunkar · 2025-09-24T14:33:41Z

yarn-project/cli-wallet/src/utils/wallet.ts

+  // Recently added when having the wallet instantiate PXE as PXE is now hidden. This forced me to expose this when
+  // refactoring `checkTx` cli-wallet command.
+  getContracts(): Promise<AztecAddress[]> {
+    return this.pxe.getContracts();
+  }
+
+  // Recently added when having the wallet instantiate PXE as PXE is now hidden. This forced me to expose this when
+  // refactoring `checkTx` cli-wallet command.
+  getNotes(filter: NotesFilter): Promise<UniqueNote[]> {
+    return this.pxe.getNotes(filter);
+  }
+
+  // Recently added when having the wallet instantiate PXE as PXE is now hidden. This forced me to expose this when
+  // refactoring `bridge_fee_juice` cli-wallet command.
+  // TODO: This should most likely just be refactored to getProtocolContractAddresses.
+  getPXEInfo(): Promise<PXEInfo> {
+    return this.pxe.getPXEInfo();
+  }


This makes sense in the CLIWallet, since it's just what it does. They do not belong in the public interface though.

Thunkar · 2025-09-24T14:36:30Z

yarn-project/cli/src/utils/setup_contracts.ts

    salt: new Fr(SPONSORED_FPC_SALT),
  });
-  await pxe.registerContract({ instance: sponsoredFPCInstance, artifact: SponsoredFPCContract.artifact });
+  await wallet.registerContract({ instance: sponsoredFPCInstance, artifact: SponsoredFPCContract.artifact });


This is useless for a short lived command, since the contract is just registered privately on a dead wallet. It might be useful to just print the address though.

Good catch!

Addressed in 4a2b131

The sponsored fpc flag on the cli command was useless as we did not ever deploy the FPC there.

PXE is becoming just a lib used by the wallet and for this reason I am dropping the corresponding JSON RPC Server. This leads to a large refactor of basically all the setups that dealt with PXE and wallets. This is a followup work of [this PR](#17163) in which I had this tasks planned: 1. Drop PXE JSON RPC server, 2. have Wallet instantiate PXE instead of having it passed in as an arg to a constructor, 3. revisit the PXE methods exposed on the TestWallet. In this PR I tackled points 1 and 2.

Followup work of #17228 In this PR I drop `getPXEInfo` and `getContracts` from `TestWallet` + add random docs improvements. `getPXEInfo` was just a tech debt as it was only used to check if node has the same protocol contract addresses which is quite non-sensical because those addresses are no literally 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... I assume this check is there from time when they didn't have these hardcoded addresses. `getContracts` was used just in one test and the check there was not really that important so I just dropped it.

benesjan changed the title ~~refactor: dropping PXE JSON RPC~~ refactor!: dropping PXE JSON RPC Sep 23, 2025

benesjan marked this pull request as ready for review September 23, 2025 12:29

benesjan commented Sep 23, 2025

View reviewed changes

benesjan force-pushed the 09-23-refactor_dropping_pxe_json_rpc branch 2 times, most recently from 1ac248a to 7b5ec83 Compare September 23, 2025 17:11

benesjan marked this pull request as draft September 24, 2025 05:46

benesjan force-pushed the 09-23-refactor_dropping_pxe_json_rpc branch 2 times, most recently from a87ae53 to 545d3f3 Compare September 24, 2025 06:40

benesjan marked this pull request as ready for review September 24, 2025 06:40