Running tests and enabling cheats outside forge command

[miohtama]

I am attempting to run forge-based test contracts (or scripts) from Python + Anvil.

Do I need to do something special to set up the cheats, enable vm_prank and others?

[mds1]

Cheat codes and the Vm interface are only usable in forge, you can do the equivalent in anvil with RPC calls https://book.getfoundry.sh/reference/anvil/#custom-methods

[miohtama]

What it would take to enable cheat codes outside forge if someone wants to run Vm interface compatible scripts outside forge?

[mds1]

You'd have to identify that the script is running against anvil and convert calls to the cheatcode to RPC calls to the node. Need to also make sure the user actually wants to do that conversion, and only support the conversion during script execution, not during tests

An alternative solution would be a vm.rpc cheat. That with the existing JSON helpers might make it pretty easy to call the anvil RPC methods from a forge script: #3362

[miohtama]

Thank you so much @mds1

How/where Forge VM -> cheat bridge is currently set up if I want to do it myself?

I am happy to take a peak at Rust source code and learn more.

[mds1]

This should be a good starting point: https://github.com/foundry-rs/foundry/blob/master/docs/dev/cheatcodes.md