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NGD Enterprise has released preview versions of Neo WorkNet and Neo Shell, two new tools for Neo N3 developers. Neo WorkNet facilitates point-in-time testing of any Neo network, while Neo Shell provides an extendable CLI for performing tasks such as contract deployment, invocation, and network queries.
Neo Shell and WorkNet primarily target smart contract developers and can be used together or independently. Instructions to install the preview releases may be found here.
Neo WorkNet
Built as a result of community feedback, Neo WorkNet provides a unique solution for teams building on-chain applications. The tool makes it possible to clone any Neo network instance, such as Testnet or MainNet, at a given time and continue its operation as a fork. This makes the past network activity and contract data of the target blockchain available to developers while providing the local development experience of a private network.
These forked networks are especially useful for larger teams, providing unified checkpoints that can be used and discarded as necessary during the course of application development and testing. Forks can be created from any RPC node with the RpcServer and StateService plugins, with the full state option set to true.
NGD Enterprise notes upcoming integrations for bug & issue tracking, sprint management, and CI/CD support. Neo WorkNet is built to be extendable, allowing for custom plugins to further expand the available functionality in the future.
Usage information for Neo WorkNet may be found here.
Neo Shell
Neo Shell is a command-line tool that makes it easy to access and manage data on Neo blockchains, providing a more streamlined alternative to running a full node. The preview release works with Neo Express and WorkNet instances, however the release build will also support other N3 networks, including TestNet and MainNet.
The tool contains a range of utilities for interacting with Neo contracts, addresses, and ledger state. After using the connect command to link with an RPC node or private network instance, the shell can be used for contract invoking and deploying, querying blocks and transactions, and viewing asset balances.
As with WorkNet, Neo Shell is also built to be customizable. The team hopes that N3 community developers will contribute new functionality to Neo Shell with their own utilities in the future.
Developers can learn how to get started with Neo Shell by reading the command reference.