NethermindEth / NethermindEth/pluto
Consolidate the three parallel SSZ stacks
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- Dominant language
- Rust
- Stars
- 8
- Forks
- 5
- Avg merge
- 4d 16h
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 37
Description
Summary
SSZ spans ~9,100 LOC across 22 files in three stacks that don't share types, hashing, or error handling:
ethereum_ssz+tree_hashderives for consensus-spec containers (crates/eth2api/src/spec/, 3,498 LOC). Every container repeats a 5-derive line plus per-field#[serde_as]attributes — 93 derive lines, 155Hex0xoccurrences.ssz_typesis not a dependency, socrates/ssz/types.rsreimplementsSszList/SszVector/BitList/BitVectorwith 12 manualEncode/Decode/TreeHashimpls (844 LOC).- A hand-ported fastssz
Hasher(crates/ssz/src/hasher.rs, 640 LOC) drivingcluster/src/ssz.rs— 29 versioned free functions selected via function-pointer tables, plus anSSZError<H>that duplicatespluto_ssz::Error— and a second locally-declaredSszHashabletrait inapp/src/obolapi/exit.rs#L30-L39. - Hand-written byte-level codecs for Charon wire formats (
core/src/ssz_codec.rs, 1,261 LOC), including deliberate deviations from what a derive would emit (documented inunsigneddata.rs: Charon emits an offset table even for fixed-size containers).
Consequences: two incompatible hash-tree-root paths, invisible semantic differences between types (some deliberately omit TreeHash and nothing flags it), and duplicated list/vector plumbing that upstream ssz_types already provides.
Proposed change
- Before touching any stack: pin the current hasher against Charon/fastssz with golden-vector tests (known input → known 32-byte root, expected values captured from the Go side). The existing
hasher.rstests are self-consistency checks (manual-tree comparisons, bitlist guards) — nothing cross-implementation. Add binary round-trip tests for the zero-test codec helpers (encode.rs,decode.rs) at the same time; they are part of the surface being consolidated. Same for the crate's other untested seams:helpers.rsput_byte_list/put_bytes_nIncorrectListSize,serde_utils.rsssz_list_u64_string_serde(string/int parse, MAX rejection, round-trip), the binaryEncode/Decodebound checks ofSszList/SszVector(only the JSON path is tested today), and the hasher'sCountGreaterThanLimitandget_depth/next_power_of_two/calculate_limitboundaries. - Adopt
ssz_typesfor List/Vector/Bitfield and delete most ofcrates/ssz/types.rs. - Merge the two hasher-side interfaces (
SszHashableinobolapivs the free-function tables incluster) into one, e.g. a version-aware trait inpluto_ssz; collapse the duplicated error enum. - Keep the Charon wire-format codecs (
ssz_codec.rs) as explicit, documented exceptions — they encode incompatibilities that derives cannot express.
Open question
The cluster config/definition/lock hashes must byte-match Charon's fastssz output. Before replacing the custom Hasher with tree_hash, prove equivalence on the existing fixture corpus (the verify_hashes golden files) — if fastssz semantics differ (they do for e.g. bitlist mixins and string hashing), the custom hasher stays and only the interface around it is consolidated.
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start with crates/ssz/src/hasher.rs and the existing hasher tests, then run the verify_hashes golden-file corpus to establish current Charon/fastssz behavior. Review crates/ssz/types.rs and crates/core/src/ssz_codec.rs alongside the listed untested helpers and codecs. Done means the stacks share interfaces and types where compatible, coverage includes the named boundaries, and Charon-specific codecs remain documented exceptions.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- rust
- Domain
- blockchain, distributed-systems, testing
- Issue type
- Refactor
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Activity status
- Quiet
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 20/100