Hardhat deployment scripts in Blockchain / Solidity - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Hardhat Deployment Scripts

📖 Scenario: You are building a simple Ethereum smart contract deployment project using Hardhat. Hardhat is a tool that helps developers deploy smart contracts to Ethereum networks easily.In this project, you will create a deployment script step-by-step to deploy a basic smart contract called SimpleStorage that stores a number.

🎯 Goal: Build a Hardhat deployment script that deploys the SimpleStorage contract to a local Ethereum network.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a deployment script file named deploy.js inside the scripts folder.

Use Hardhat Runtime Environment (hre) to deploy the contract.

Deploy the SimpleStorage contract and wait for deployment to finish.

Print the deployed contract address to the console.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Deploying smart contracts is a key step in launching blockchain applications like tokens, games, or finance apps.

💼 Career

Blockchain developers must write deployment scripts to automate contract deployment and testing in professional projects.

1

Create the deployment script file and import Hardhat

Create a file named deploy.js inside the scripts folder. Inside it, write const hre = require("hardhat"); to import Hardhat Runtime Environment.

Blockchain / Solidity

const hre = require("hardhat");
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use require("hardhat") to import Hardhat Runtime Environment as hre.

2

Write an async function to deploy the SimpleStorage contract

Write an async function named main. Inside it, get the contract factory for SimpleStorage using hre.ethers.getContractFactory("SimpleStorage") and store it in a variable called SimpleStorage. Then deploy the contract by calling SimpleStorage.deploy() and store the deployed contract in a variable called simpleStorage. Use await to wait for deployment to finish by calling simpleStorage.deployed().

Blockchain / Solidity

const hre = require("hardhat");

async function main() {
    // Your code here
}

Need a hint?

Use hre.ethers.getContractFactory to get the contract factory, then deploy and wait for deployment.

3

Call the main function and handle errors

After the main function, call it and add .then(() => process.exit(0)) to exit successfully. Add .catch((error) => { console.error(error); process.exit(1); }) to catch and print errors and exit with failure.

Blockchain / Solidity

const hre = require("hardhat");

async function main() {
    const SimpleStorage = await hre.ethers.getContractFactory("SimpleStorage");
    const simpleStorage = await SimpleStorage.deploy();
    await simpleStorage.deployed();
}

// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use main().then(...).catch(...) to run the async function and handle errors.

4

Print the deployed contract address

Inside the main function, after await simpleStorage.deployed(), add a console.log statement to print "SimpleStorage deployed to:" followed by simpleStorage.address.

Blockchain / Solidity

const hre = require("hardhat");

async function main() {
    const SimpleStorage = await hre.ethers.getContractFactory("SimpleStorage");
    const simpleStorage = await SimpleStorage.deploy();
    await simpleStorage.deployed();
    // Your code here
}

main()
    .then(() => process.exit(0))
    .catch((error) => {
        console.error(error);
        process.exit(1);
    });

Need a hint?

Use console.log("SimpleStorage deployed to:", simpleStorage.address) to print the address.