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Name Your Contracts with the Enscribe Library

· 3 min read
Abhijeet Bhagat
Abhijeet Bhagat
Enscribe Senior Engineer

Last week, we announced the hardhat-enscribe plugin for smart contract developers to name their contracts. We showed how smart contract developers can name their contracts with hardhat:

  • Using a CLI command, powered by the hardhat-enscribe plugin, that can be executed after the deployment command
  • Using the enscribe library in the hardhat deployment script

Under the hood, the hardhat-enscribe plugin uses the same @enscribe/enscribe library. It is a small TypeScript library you can use in any app or tool.

In this post, we will take a look at how to use the library to name your smart contracts in your apps.

It is very simple to use. From its public API, a single abstraction function creates the subname, sets forward and reverse records, and returns useful metadata (tx hashes, detected contract type, explorer link).

Using the Library​

Start by installing the library:

pnpm install @enscribe/enscribe

Once installed, import the nameContract function:

import { nameContract } from "@enscribe/enscribe";

The nameContract function itself has a simple interface. It accepts the following parameters:

  • Contract name
  • Contract address
  • Wallet client (from viem or wagmi)
  • Name of the chain on which the contract address is
  • Optional flag for logging naming metrics

We now create a wallet client object with wagmi:

import useWalletClient from ‘wagmi’
…
const { data: walletClient } = useWalletClient()

Once we have the wallet client created, we are ready to name our contract with nameContract:

const res = await nameContract({
  name: "vault.myapp.eth",
  contractAddress: "0x…",
  walletClient,
  chainName: "sepolia",
  enableMetrics: true
});

That’s it! With this single function, developers can easily set a name to their contracts without having to worry about sending individual transactions like creation of subname and setting resolutions.

However, the library is also flexible in leaking this abstraction (which isn’t a bad thing always 🙂) by exposing the following functions and use them however you want:

  • createSubname
  • setForwardResolution
  • setReverseResolution

We want to make it easier for developers to name their contracts during contract deployment time and this is where the library comes in – they can integrate it in their Hardhat scripts. But they can also name their contracts after the contract is deployed with the hardhat-enscribe plugin. You can head over to the library documentation to explore the API.

Get started​

  • Hardhat plugin: install, configure, and run npm hardhat enscribe name ... to label new or existing deployments. (GitHub)
  • Core library: import @enscribe/enscribe and call nameContract() wherever you manage contracts (GitHub)
  • Docs & guides: quick starts, concepts, and best practices for contract naming and multi-chain resolution. (enscribe.xyz)

Happy naming! 🚀