Framework and Toolchain

The Antelope framework is made up of the following components and toolchain:

1. nodeos: the core Antelope node daemon that can be configured with plugins to run a node. Example uses are block production, dedicated API endpoints, and local development.
2. cleos: the command line interface to interact with the blockchain and to manage wallets.
3. keosd: the component that securely stores Antelope keys in wallets.
4. CDT: the Contract Development Toolkit is a C/C++ toolchain targeting WebAssembly (WASM) and a set of tools to facilitate development of smart contracts written in C/C++ that are meant to be deployed to an Antelope blockchain..

The basic relationship between these components is illustrated in the following diagram:

Note

Antelope also provides a frontend library for javascript development called EOSJS along with Swift and Java SDKs for native mobile applications development.

Nodeos

Nodeos is the core Antelope node daemon. Nodeos handles the blockchain data persistence layer, peer-to-peer networking, and contract code scheduling. For development environments, nodeos enables you to set up a single node blockchain network. Nodeos offers a wide range of features through plugins which can be enabled or disabled at start time via the command line parameters or configuration files.

You can read detailed documentation about nodeos here.

Cleos

cleos is a command line tool that interfaces with the REST APIs exposed by nodeos. You can also use cleos to deploy and test Antelope smart contracts.

You can read detailed documentation about cleos here.

Keosd

keosd is a key manager daemon for storing private keys and signing digital messages. keosd provides a secure key storage medium for keys to be encrypted in the associated wallet file. The keosd daemon also defines a secure enclave for signing transaction created by cleos or a third party library.

Note

keosd can be accessed using the wallet API, but it is important to note that the intended usage is for local light client applications. keosd is not for cross network access by web applications trying to access users' wallets.

You can read detailed documentation about keosd here.

CDT

CDT is a toolchain for WebAssembly (Wasm) and a set of tools to facilitate contract writing for the Antelope framework. In addition to being a general-purpose WebAssembly toolchain, Antelope-specific optimizations are available to support building Antelope smart contracts. This new toolchain is built around Clang 7, which means that CDT has most of the current optimizations and analyses from LLVM.

You can read more about CDT here.

EOSJS

A Javascript API SDK for integration with Antelope-based blockchains using the Antelope RPC API.

What's Next?

• Core Concepts: Learn about Antelope's core concepts