Proposal: cantonctl — Institutional-Grade CLI Toolchain for Canton
Development Fund Proposal Submission
Proposal file: /proposals/cantonctl.md
Summary
cantonctl is a Hardhat/Foundry-equivalent CLI toolchain for Canton Network developers. It solves the #1 pain point from the Q1 2026 Developer Experience Survey — environment setup — by providing a single command-line tool that scaffolds, builds, tests, and deploys Daml applications.
This tool is built and published. cantonctl v0.2.0 is live on npm (npm install -g cantonctl). 12 commands, 23 foundation libraries, 5 project templates, multi-node Docker topology, 460 tests at 98% coverage — all verifiable in the public repository.
Repository: merged-one/cantonctl npm: cantonctl@0.2.0 Latest Release: v0.2.0
Total request: 1,000,000 CC across 4 milestones (M1 already complete).
| Milestone | Scope | CC |
|---|---|---|
| M1 | Complete CLI Toolchain | 250,000 |
| M2 | Distribution + Developer Experience | 250,000 |
| M3 | Plugin Ecosystem | 250,000 |
| M4 | VS Code Extension | 250,000 |
Supporting documents:
- Roadmap — Phases 1-7 with Hardhat parity analysis
- Funding Justification — Comparable tool funding ($5-50M across 8 ecosystems)
Checklist
- Proposal file added under
/proposals/ - Milestones and funding amounts defined
- Acceptance criteria included
- Alignment with Canton priorities described
Notes for Reviewers
Author: Charles Dusek (Merged One). cantonctl is already published on npm with a working automated release pipeline — this grant accelerates an existing, production-quality tool, not a concept.
Try it now:
npm install -g cantonctl
cantonctl doctor # Check prerequisites
cantonctl init my-app --template token
cd my-app && cantonctl build && cantonctl test
Milestone 1 (250,000 CC) is already complete — the entire CLI with 12 commands, 23 libraries, 5 templates, 460 tests, and 14 ADRs is delivered and verifiable. This represents zero delivery risk on 25% of the total ask.
The proposal includes capabilities that other proposals request as standalone projects — TypeScript codegen (cf. DAR-to-TypeScript Codegen, 330,000 CC) and topology generation (cf. Modular Canton Topology Composer, 140,000 CC) — both already shipped as built-in commands.
Feedback is especially welcome on:
- Priority features for Milestone 2 (distribution,
doctor,exec, deployment tracking) - Plugin ecosystem priorities for Milestone 3
- VS Code extension scope for Milestone 4