Proposal: cantonctl — Institutional-Grade CLI Toolchain for Canton

CLOSEDPull Request

by cgdusek01-04-2026

1M CC requested

Development Fund Proposal Submission

Proposal file: /proposals/cantonctl.md

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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 | COMPLETE | | 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)

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Checklist

[x] Proposal file added under /proposals/
[x] Milestones and funding amounts defined
[x] Acceptance criteria included
[x] Alignment with Canton priorities described

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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