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App

App management

App management is a higher-order use case capability provided by AlgoKit Utils that builds on top of the core capabilities. It allows you to create, update, delete, call (ABI and otherwise) smart contract apps and the metadata associated with them (including state and boxes).

AppCallArgs

All calls to smart contracts will allow you to optionally specify the arguments you want to pass in to the call.

This type is a union of two types: RawAppCallArgs and ABIAppCallArgs.

RawAppCallArgs

RawAppCallArgs allows you to explicitly specify all of the arguments and has the following properties (all of which are optional):

  • accounts: (string | algosdk.Address)[] - Any accounts to add to the accounts array either as the string or algosdk.Address representation of the public address of the account(s)
  • appArgs: (Uint8Array | string)[] - Any arguments to pass to the smart contract call, either as the binary representation or a string (that will be encoded to binary using TextEncoder)
  • boxes: (BoxReference | BoxIdentifier | algosdk.BoxReference)[] - Any boxes to load to the boxes array
  • apps: number[]: The ID of any apps to load to the foreign apps array
  • assets: number[]: The ID of any assets to load to the foreign assets array
  • lease: string | Uint8Array: A lease to assign to the transaction to enforce a mutually exclusive transaction (useful to prevent double-posting and other scenarios)
  • rekeyTo: string | SendTransactionFrom: An account or account address that should be authorised to transact on behalf of the account the app call is sent from after the app transaction is processed; note: use with extreme caution and review the official rekey guidance first

ABIAppCallArgs

ABIAppCallArgs allows you to specify an ARC-0004 ABI call

  • method: algosdk.ABIMethodParams | algosdk.ABIMethod - The ABI method to call
  • methodArgs: ABIAppCallArg[] - The arguments to pass to the ABI call, which can be one of:
  • algosdk.ABIArgument - Which can be one of:
    • boolean
    • number
    • bigint
    • string
    • Uint8Array
    • An array of one of the above types
    • algosdk.TransactionWithSigner
  • TransactionToSign
  • algosdk.Transaction
  • Promise<SendTransactionResult> - which allows you to use an AlgoKit Utils method call that returns a transaction without needing to await the call and extract the transaction, if you do this be sure to use skipWaiting: true when specifying the sending parameters so you get the transaction without sending it to the network
  • boxes: (BoxReference | BoxIdentifier | algosdk.BoxReference)[] - Any boxes to load to the boxes array
  • lease: string | Uint8Array: A lease to assign to the transaction to enforce a mutually exclusive transaction (useful to prevent double-posting and other scenarios)
  • rekeyTo: string | SendTransactionFrom: An account or account address that should be authorised to transact on behalf of the account the app call is sent from after the app transaction is processed; note: use with extreme caution and review the official rekey guidance first

Utility methods

If you want to manually construct a transaction, but use these types to specify the arguments then you can use the following methods:

  • algokit.getAppArgsForTransaction - Takes a RawAppCallArgs object and returns the corresponding fields ready to set onto an algosdk.Transaction
  • algokit.getAppArgsForABICall - Takes a ABIAppCallArgs object and returns the corresponding fields ready to pass into addMethodCall on AtomicTransactionComposer

Referencing boxes

To reference a box in a transaction using AlgoKit Utils, you can specify one of the following types:

  • BoxIdentifier - Which can be one of:
  • string - Which will be encoded as a box name using TextEncoder
  • Uint8Array - Which will be used directly
  • SendTransactionFrom - Which will be converted into the public address of the sender corresponding to the account and the public key encoded to binary
    • This type of encoding is compatible with directly referencing an account address within the smart contract (e.g. (address := pt.abi.Address()).set(pt.Txn.sender()) in PyTEAL)
  • BoxReference - Which is an interface that has two fields:
  • appId: number - The app ID
  • name: BoxIdentifier - The name, per the above type
  • algosdk.BoxReference - The in-built algosdk BoxReference type, which has two properties:
  • appIndex: number
  • name: UInt8Array - The name in binary

If you specify a BoxIdentifier directly outside of the BoxReference type then the behaviour is to load the box from the current app the transaction that box identifier appears in. To see more about how box references work consult the official documentation.

BoxName

To get a box reference when reading box state there is a helpful BoxName type that is exposed, which provides the following properties:

  • name: string
  • nameBase64: string
  • nameRaw: Uint8Array

Creating and updating apps

createApp

To create an app you can call algokit.createApp(createPayload, algod). See the tests for an example.

The payload to configure an app consists of a union of SendTransactionParams and the following properties:

  • Required
  • from: SendTransactionFrom - The account (with private key loaded) that will send the transaction
  • approvalProgram: Uint8Array | string - The approval program as raw teal (string) or compiled teal, base 64 encoded as a byte array (Uint8Array)
  • clearStateProgram: Uint8Array | string - The clear state program as raw teal (string) or compiled teal, base 64 encoded as a byte array (Uint8Array)
  • schema: AppStorageSchema - The storage schema to request for the created app
  • onCompleteAction?: algosdk.OnApplicationComplete - The on-completion action to specify for the call; defaults to NoOp
  • Optional:
  • transactionParams: SuggestedParams - Any transaction parameters
  • note: TransactionNote - A transaction note
  • args: AppCallArgs - Any arguments passed in to the app call

If you pass in approvalProgram or clearProgram as a string then it will automatically be compiled using Algod and the compilation result will be returned from the function (including the source map). To skip this behaviour you can pass in the compiled TEAL as Uint8Array.

If you pass in args that represent an ABI then it will use an AtomicTransactionComposer to construct and send the transaction(s). Because it's possible that other transactions may be present as ABI arguments, the full set of transactions that were sent are returned in transactions and the primary transaction for the create call will also be available in transaction. If you pass in the atc or skipSending: true then it won't execute the transaction and will simply return the transaction(s). The return value will have any ABI return value within it.

updateApp

To update an app you can call algokit.updateApp(updatePayload, algod).

The update payload and behaviour is the same as createApp with two payload differences:

  • schema is not present, since it can only be set when creating a smart contract
  • appId: number is present (required), which specifies the ID of the app to update

Calling an app

To call an app outside of creation or update you can call algokit.callApp(callPayload, algod).

The payload to configure an app call consists of a union of SendTransactionParams and the following properties:

  • Required:

  • appId: number - The ID of the app to call

  • callType: AppCallType | algosdk.OnApplicationComplete - The on-completion action for the call (either as an algosdk.OnApplicationComplete enum or a string enum)

  • from: SendTransactionFrom - The account (with private key loaded) that will send the transaction

  • Optional:

  • transactionParams: SuggestedParams - Any transaction parameters
  • note: TransactionNote - A transaction note
  • args: AppCallArgs - Any arguments passed in to the app call

If you pass in args that represent an ABI then it will use an AtomicTransactionComposer to construct and send the transaction(s). Because it's possible that other transactions may be present as ABI arguments, the full set of transactions that were sent are returned in transactions and the primary transaction for the create call will also be available in transaction. If you pass in the atc or skipSending: true then it won't execute the transaction and will simply return the transaction(s). The return value will have any ABI return value within it.

Accessing state

Global state

To access and parse global state you can use the following methods:

  • algokit.getAppGlobalState(appId, algod) - Returns the current global state for the given app ID decoded into an object keyed by the UTF-8 representation of the state key with various parsed versions of the value (base64, UTF-8 and raw binary)
  • decodeAppState(state) - Takes the raw response from algod API for global state and returned a friendly decoded object (this is automatically used by getAppGlobalState)

Local state

To access and parse local state you can use the following methods:

  • algokit.getAppLocalState(appId, algod) - Returns the current local state for the given app ID decoded into an object keyed by the UTF-8 representation of the state key with various parsed versions of the value (base64, UTF-8 and raw binary)
  • decodeAppState(state) - Takes the raw response from algod API for local state and returned a friendly decoded object (this is automatically used by getAppLocalState)

Boxes

To access and parse box values and names for an app you can use the following methods:

Getting an app reference

To get reference information and metadata about an existing app you can use the following methods:

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