Contracts

Freenet is essentially a global decentralized key-value store where keys are WebAssembly code called Contracts. Contracts are stored in the network along with their data or "state". The contract controls what state is permitted and how it can be modified.

Network users can read a contract's state, and subscribe to receive immediate updates if the state is modified.

Contracts play a similar role in Freenet to databases and realtime publish-subscribe mechanisms in traditional online services, while being entirely decentralized, secure, and scalable.

Contract Operation

State synchronization and merging

Fundamental Concepts

Contracts need to provide a mechanism to merge any two valid states, creating a new state that integrates both. This process ensures the eventual consistency of contract states in Freenet, a concept similar to Conflict-free Replicated Data Types.

In the language of mathematics, the contract defines a commutative monoid on the contract's state. For example, if the contract's state is a single number, then the contract could define the merging of two states as the sum of the two numbers. However, these basic operations are too simple on their own but can be combined with others to support the merging of more complex states.

Efficient State Synchronization

A naive approach to state synchronization would be to transfer the entire state between peers, but this approach is very inefficient for large states. Instead, Freenet contracts utilize a much more efficient and flexible approach to state synchronization by providing an implementation of three functions:

  • summarize_state - Returns a concise summary of the contract's state.

  • get_state_delta - Compares the contract's state against the summary of another state and returns the difference between the two, the "delta".

  • update_state - Applies a delta to the contract's state, updating it to bring it in sync with the other state.

Contracts can implement these functions however they wish depending on the type of data being synchronized.

Step-by-step

PeerA and PeerB need to synchronize their states. The algorithm for efficient state synchronization comprises the following steps:

  1. Summarize State by Initiator: PeerA compiles a concise summary of its current state using the summarize_state function.

    • This summary is transmitted to PeerB

  2. Compare State at Receiver: PeerB uses get_state_delta to compare the summary against its own state.

    • If they are different, proceed to the next step; if not, synchronization is complete.

  3. Send Delta: If the states are different, PeerB calculates the delta and sends it to PeerA.

  4. Apply Delta: PeerA applies this received delta to its state using update_state.

  5. Reverse Synchronization: This process is repeated in the opposite.

This approach allows peers to synchronize state over the network while minimizing data transfer.

Blog Use Case

Consider a public blog contract. The state of this contract would be the blog's content, including a list of blog posts. The contract's code requires that new posts can only be added if they are signed by the blog's owner, the owner's public key is part of the contract's parameters.

The contract would summarize its state by returning a list of post identifiers, and the state delta would be a list of new posts. The contract would apply the delta by appending the new posts to its list of posts. The contract may have a limit on the number of posts it can store, in which case it would remove old posts to make room for new ones.

Writing a Contract in Rust

Freenet Contracts can be written in any programming language that compiles to WebAssembly, but as Freenet is written in Rust it is currently the best supported language for writing contracts.

The ContractInterface Trait

Rust contracts implement the ContractInterface trait, which defines the functions that the kernel calls to interact with the contract. This trait is defined in the freenet-stdlib.

{{#include ../../../stdlib/rust/src/contract_interface.rs:contractifce}}

Flexibility versus Convenience

The ContractInterface trait is a low-level "Layer 0" API that provides direct access to the contract's state and parameters. This API is useful for contracts that require fine-grained control over their state, but can be cumbersome.

We will provide higher-level APIs on top of Layer 0 that will sacrafice some flexibility for ease of contract implementation.