Request for improvements to contract verifier how-to

[partylikeits1983]

Problem

I used Noir 3 months ago, the running nargo codegen-verifier created a solidity verifier. Now this feature was removed.

Happy Case

nargo codegen-verifier should result in a solidity verifier. Why move it to some npm package?? Now my project needs a forge.toml, cargo.toml, and a package.json??? Additionally the docs got worse, they assume developers who use noir will use remixIDE?

Workaround

Yes

Workaround Description

Search for 30 minutes how to generate a solidity verifier.

Additional Context

No response

Project Impact

Blocker

Blocker Context

Why remove useful features?

Would you like to submit a PR for this Issue?

Maybe

Support Needs

No response

[partylikeits1983]

Please add this to your docs: https://github.com/AztecProtocol/aztec-packages/blob/ss/doc-bb-honk/barretenberg/cpp/src/barretenberg/bb/readme.md#usage-with-ultrahonk

These docs are very misleading: https://noir-lang.org/docs/how_to/how-to-solidity-verifier

[TomAFrench]

This command was removed as the verifier contract is specific to a particular proving backend. Nargo no longer handles communication with the proving backend in order to make it easier to use 3rd party backends, and so the contract must be generated on the backend directly.

[TomAFrench]

We do link to the BB docs when we introduce usage of bb in our documentation.

https://noir-lang.org/docs/dev/getting_started/backend/

https://noir-lang.org/docs/dev/getting_started/hello_noir/#proving-backend

cc @noir-lang/developerrelations on issues with contract verifier tutorial.

[partylikeits1983]

Yes, I found how to generate a proving contract, this is at the bottom of Creating a project in the docs. The Generate a Solidity verifier should also have the same info on how to use bb for people who don't use RemixIDE.

@TomAFrench Also how to pass the a proof to the generated contract to verify? There used to be a file with a .proof extension, what is the new equivalent?

[TomAFrench]

https://noir-lang.org/docs/how_to/how-to-solidity-verifier#step-4---verifying

[critesjosh]

@partylikeits1983 from what i understand, the info that you are looking for is included in Step 1 of the page. The information that follows is meant to demonstrate how you could interact with the verifier. I opened a PR to make it easier to find more info about bb from the Solidity Verifier page. Just want to check that these edits address your issue.

@Savio-Sou do we want to add instructions for generating solidity verifiers with ultrahonk yet?

[Savio-Sou]

@critesjosh I haven't personally figured out how to extract public inputs from Honk proofs yet, but we are clear to document it is expected to work from Noir v0.33.0 + bb v0.47.1 onwards.

Will defer to your team on is updating the how-to in Noir docs worthwhile in terms of LearnEx vs sustainable feasibility (i.e. if we need to consider migrating content to bb's README).