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Quick Start

Testing features under active development

The EVM features under test must be implemented in the evm tool and solc executables that are used by the execution-spec-tests framework. The following guide installs stable versions of these tools.

To test features under active development, start with this base configuration and then follow the steps in executing tests for features under development.

The following requires a Python 3.10, 3.11 or 3.12 installation.

  1. Ensure go-ethereum's evm tool and solc (0.8.20 or 0.8.21) are in your path. Either build the required versions, or alternatively:

    sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:ethereum/ethereum
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ethereum solc
    More help:

    brew update
brew upgrade
brew tap ethereum/ethereum
brew install ethereum solidity
    More help:

    Binaries available here:

    More help:

  2. Clone the execution-spec-tests repo and install its dependencies (it's recommended to use a virtual environment for the installation):

    git clone https://github.com/ethereum/execution-spec-tests
cd execution-spec-tests
python3 -m venv ./venv/
source ./venv/bin/activate
pip install -e '.[docs,lint,test]'

  3. Verify installation:

    1. Explore test cases:

      fill --collect-only

      Expected console output:

      Screenshot of pytest test collection console output

    2. Execute the test cases (verbosely) in the ./tests/berlin/eip2930_access_list/test_acl.py module:

      fill -v tests/berlin/eip2930_access_list/test_acl.py

      Expected console output:

      Screenshot of pytest test collection console output
      Check:

      1. The versions of the evm and solc tools are as expected (your versions may differ from those in the highlighted box).

      2. The corresponding fixture file has been generated:

        head fixtures/berlin/eip2930_access_list/acl/access_list.json

Next Steps

  1. Learn useful command-line flags.
  2. Execute tests for features under development via the --fork flag.
  3. Optional: Configure VS Code to auto-format Python code and execute tests within VS Code.
  4. Implement a new test case, see Writing Tests.