CLI Reference

The Skittles CLI provides commands for compiling, testing, and managing your contract projects.

skittles <command> [options]

compile

Compile all TypeScript contract files to Solidity, ABI, and EVM bytecode.

npx skittles compile

This command:

1. Loads the configuration from skittles.config.json or skittles.config.js
2. Finds all .ts files in the configured contractsDir (default: contracts/)
3. Pre scans files to collect shared types, functions, and constants
4. Parses each file's TypeScript AST into the Skittles intermediate representation
5. Generates Solidity source code from the IR
6. Compiles the Solidity via solc to produce ABI and bytecode
7. Writes artifacts to the configured outputDir (default: build/)

Output structure:

build/
├── abi/
│   ├── Token.json       # Contract ABI
│   └── Staking.json
├── bytecode/
│   ├── Token.bin        # EVM bytecode (hex)
│   └── Staking.bin
├── solidity/
│   ├── Token.sol        # Generated Solidity source
│   └── Staking.sol
└── .skittles-cache.json  # Incremental compilation cache

Incremental compilation is automatic. Unchanged files are skipped using SHA256 hash comparison.

Example Output

🍬 Skittles

ℹ Found 2 contract file(s)
ℹ Compiling contracts/Token.ts...
✔ Token compiled successfully
ℹ contracts/Staking.ts unchanged, using cache
✔ Staking compiled successfully (cached)
✔ Compilation complete
✔ 2 contract(s) compiled successfully

test

Compile all contracts and run the test suite with Vitest.

npx skittles test

This command runs skittles compile first, then executes vitest run. If compilation fails, tests are not run.

Watch Mode

Run tests in watch mode for rapid development:

npx skittles test --watch

In watch mode, Vitest re runs tests when files change.

Options

Flag	Alias	Description
--watch	-w	Run vitest in watch mode

Example Output

🍬 Skittles

ℹ Compiling contracts before running tests...
ℹ Found 1 contract file(s)
ℹ Compiling contracts/Token.ts...
✔ Token compiled successfully
✔ 1 contract(s) compiled successfully
ℹ Running tests...

 ✓ test/Token.test.ts (5 tests) 1200ms

 Test Files  1 passed (1)
      Tests  5 passed (5)
   Duration  2.34s

clean

Remove all build artifacts and the compilation cache.

npx skittles clean

This deletes the entire output directory (default: build/), including the .skittles-cache.json cache file. Use this to force a full recompilation.

Example Output

🍬 Skittles

ℹ Removing build directory: build/
✔ Build artifacts cleaned

init

Scaffold a new Skittles project in the current directory.

npx skittles init

This creates:

File	Description
contracts/Token.ts	Example ERC20 token contract
test/Token.test.ts	Example test using skittles/testing
skittles.config.json	Compiler configuration with defaults
tsconfig.json	TypeScript configuration for contract development
vitest.config.ts	Vitest test runner configuration
hardhat.config.ts	Hardhat in memory EVM configuration
.gitignore (updated)	Adds build/, dist/, node_modules/

If any file already exists, it is skipped with a warning.

Example Output

🍬 Skittles

ℹ Initializing new Skittles project...
✔ Created contracts/ directory
✔ Created test/ directory
✔ Created skittles.config.json
✔ Created contracts/Token.ts
✔ Created test/Token.test.ts
✔ Created tsconfig.json
✔ Created vitest.config.ts
✔ Created hardhat.config.ts
✔ Updated .gitignore
✔ Skittles project initialized!
ℹ
ℹ Next steps:
ℹ   1. Install testing dependencies:
ℹ      npm install --save-dev ethers hardhat vitest
ℹ   2. Compile and test:
ℹ      npx skittles test

Global Options

Flag	Description
--help	Show help for a command
--version	Show the installed Skittles version

npx skittles --version
npx skittles compile --help