@keep-network/hardhat-local-networks-config

A Hardhat plugin that lets a project's networks configuration be extended from a project-local file and/or a ~/.hardhat/networks.json file in the developer's home directory, without committing per-developer network settings (RPC URLs, private keys) to the repository.

Installation

Add a git dependency in package.json (this package is not published to the npm registry):

"@keep-network/hardhat-local-networks-config": "github:threshold-network/hardhat-local-networks-config#<commit-sha>"

Then, in hardhat.config.ts (or .js):

import "@keep-network/hardhat-local-networks-config"

Configuration

This plugin extends HardhatUserConfig with an optional localNetworksConfig field naming the local config file to load:

const config: HardhatUserConfig = {
  localNetworksConfig: "./.hardhat/networks.ts",
}

The home file, ~/.hardhat/networks.json, is always read if it exists - it isn't a fallback for localNetworksConfig, and setting one doesn't disable the other. localNetworksConfig adds a second, project-local file that merges on top of it. Both JS/TS and JSON formats are supported for either file.

Usage

The local config file (localNetworksConfig, project-specific) and the home file (~/.hardhat/networks.json, machine-wide) both support this shape; any other field is ignored:

export interface LocalNetworksConfig {
  networks?: NetworksUserConfig
  defaultConfig?: NetworkUserConfig
}

NetworksUserConfig/NetworkUserConfig are Hardhat's own base types. Example:

{
  "networks": {
    "sepolia": {
      "accounts": ["0x12..56"],
      "url": "https://sepolia.infura.io/v3/<API_KEY>"
    }
  },
  "defaultConfig": {
    "gasPrice": "auto"
  }
}

For a network declared in the project's own hardhat.config.ts, fields merge with this priority (highest wins): local config's per-network entry, then the project's own config, then the home file's per-network entry, then the home file's defaultConfig. For a network declared only in the local config file (not in the project's own hardhat.config.ts at all), the home file's per-network entry still applies (see "Deliberate deviation" below) beneath the local config's own per-network entry and defaultConfig.

Why this fork exists

This plugin was originally hardhat-local-networks-config-plugin by Facu Spagnuolo, forked to keep-network/hardhat-local-networks-config. Both repositories went unmaintained: no commits since 2022-03-15, no releases since 0.1.0-pre.4, and neither repository's default branch actually contains the source that was published to npm — the real source only ever existed on an unmerged load-path-update branch, and even that differs slightly from the published tarball.

threshold-network/keep-core depended on the last two published pre-release versions (0.1.0-pre.0 and 0.1.0-pre.4) from its two Solidity packages (random-beacon and ecdsa respectively). This fork restores it as a normal, maintained dependency instead of two consumers each vendoring a private copy of frozen upstream code.

Provenance of src/

Recovered directly from the published npm tarball for 0.1.0-pre.4 (sha1 cc0c8ac1f5e30f33378e7451f696ab17d504ab86) — the only reliable source of truth for what consumers actually ran, since neither facuspagnuolo/hardhat-local-networks-config-plugin nor keep-network/hardhat-local-networks-config's default branch ever matched what was published. 0.1.0-pre.0 (the version random-beacon had pinned) predates this file's type-extensions.ts split and the explicit import "./type-extensions" in index.ts — it shipped only a hand-written src/type-extensions.d.ts augmenting hardhat/types rather than hardhat/types/config. That's a source-shape difference between the two originally-pinned versions, not a behavioral one: a declare module augmentation has no runtime footprint beyond the side-effect import itself, which both consuming packages' live hre.config.networks verification already exercised successfully.

Deliberate deviation from the published tarball

The published 0.1.0-pre.4 plugin has a latent bug: when a network is declared only in the project-local config file (not in the consuming project's own hardhat.config.ts), the merge for that network omits the home file's (~/.hardhat/networks.json) per-network override entirely - any field set only there is silently dropped. Fixed here (see index.ts's header for the exact change); a field the local file also sets still wins (it's later in the merge order, matching the plugin's other merge branches - this is intentional, not something the fix changes). Covered by a regression test in test/project.test.ts that fails without the fix. extendConfig's callback is also named and exported as applyLocalNetworksConfig so that regression test (and any consumer's own tests) can exercise the merge logic directly.

This is behaviorally inert for both current threshold-network/keep-core consumers as of this writing: neither ecdsa nor random-beacon sets localNetworksConfig in its committed hardhat.config.ts (the option is present but commented out in both), so the affected merge branch never runs for either today. Confirmed via a live hre.config.networks diff against both consumers' actual configs before and after switching from the vendored copy to this package - byte-identical modulo Hardhat's own per-run initialDate timestamp.

License

MIT, unchanged from upstream. See LICENSE.