Other Network Providers

The CashScript SDK needs to connect to the BCH network to perform certain operations, like retrieving the contract's balance, or sending transactions.

MockNetworkProvider

new MockNetworkProvider(options?: MockNetworkProviderOptions)

The MockNetworkProvider is a special network provider that allows you to evaluate transactions locally without interacting with the Bitcoin Cash network. This is useful when writing automated tests for your contracts, or when debugging your contract locally.

The MockNetworkProvider has extra methods to enable this local emulation such as .addUtxo() and .setBlockHeight(). You can read more about the MockNetworkProvider and automated tests on the testing setup page.

interface MockNetworkProviderOptions {
  updateUtxoSet?: boolean;
  vmTarget?: VmTarget;
}

interface MockNetworkProvider extends NetworkProvider {
  options: MockNetworkProviderOptions;
  vmTarget: VmTarget;

  constructor(options?: Partial<MockNetworkProviderOptions>) {}

  // Hardcode the block height
  setBlockHeight(newBlockHeight: number): void;

  // Add a UTXO to the UTXO set of the mock network
  addUtxo(addressOrLockingBytecode: string, utxo: Utxo): void;

  // Reset the UTXO set and transaction list of the mock network
  reset(): void;
}

The updateUtxoSet option is used to determine whether the UTXO set should be updated after a transaction is sent. If updateUtxoSet is true (default), the UTXO set will be updated to reflect the new state of the mock network. If updateUtxoSet is false, the UTXO set will not be updated.

The vmTarget option defaults to the current VM of BCH_2025_05, but this can be changed to test your contract against different BCH virtual machine targets.

Example

const provider = new MockNetworkProvider();
const newUtxo = randomUtxo({satoshis: 10_000n})
provider.addUtxo(contractAddress, newUtxo);

The network type of the MockNetworkProvider is 'mocknet'.

Other NetworkProviders

Third parties can implement their own alternative network providers by implementing the NetworkProvider interface and publishing them as a package.