Create a Nada project and write your first Nada program
The nada
tool is used to create a new Nada project, compile all programs in the project, run Nada programs, and generate tests for Nada programs.
Before starting this guide, Install the Nillion SDK
-
Confirm installation:
nillion --version
-
Ensure you have a .venv folder inside
nada
-
Check your tree in the previous step.
Create a new first Nada program
-
Change directories into your new
nada
directorycd nada
-
Activate the python virtual environment
source .venv/bin/activate
-
Install nada-dsl from pypi
pip install --upgrade nada-dsl
Write your first Nada program
Open the nada_quickstart_programs
folder in your code editor of choice.
Your Nada project has the following structure:
nada-project.toml # Configuration file for your Nada programs
src/ # Directory for writing Nada programs
src/main.py # An example Nada program that adds 2 secret integers
target/ # Directory where `nada build` puts resulting compiled programs
tests/ # Directory where `nada generate-test` puts resulting test files
1. Create a Nada program file
The src/
directory is where you'll write your Nada programs. Create a new Nada program file in the src directory. The secret_addition.py
Nada program will add 2 SecretInteger Nada values together.
touch src/secret_addition.py
2. Write the secret addition Nada program
Copy this Nada program into the secret_addition.py
file. Don't worry, we'll go through a line by line explanation of the program next.
from nada_dsl import *
def nada_main():
party1 = Party(name="Party1")
my_int1 = SecretInteger(Input(name="my_int1", party=party1))
my_int2 = SecretInteger(Input(name="my_int2", party=party1))
new_int = my_int1 + my_int2
return [Output(new_int, "my_output", party1)]
3. Understand each line of the secret_addition.py
Nada program
Let's go through the program line by line to understand what each part is doing.
-
First we import all from nada_dsl, the Nada language
from nada_dsl import *
-
Next we create
function nada_main()
- this is the main function that contains our Nada program's code.from nada_dsl import *
def nada_main(): -
Create a party with a name:
Party1
from nada_dsl import *
def nada_main():
party1 = Party(name="Party1")This is a single party program, but you could add more than one party; for example we could define
party2 = Party(name="Party2")
. -
Create program inputs
from nada_dsl import *
def nada_main():
party1 = Party(name="Party1")
my_int1 = SecretInteger(Input(name="my_int1", party=party1))
my_int2 = SecretInteger(Input(name="my_int2", party=party1))This program has two inputs, both secret integers. Each input must have a
name
and aparty
associated with it. Currently in nada you can only compute on secret or public integers (and rationals by using thenada-algebra
library). -
Compute on the inputs
from nada_dsl import *
def nada_main():
party1 = Party(name="Party1")
my_int1 = SecretInteger(Input(name="my_int1", party=party1))
my_int2 = SecretInteger(Input(name="my_int2", party=party1))
new_int = my_int1 + my_int2This performs addition to sum the inputs. Check out all the built in operations available in nada here.
-
Return the output of the program
from nada_dsl import *
def nada_main():
party1 = Party(name="Party1")
my_int1 = SecretInteger(Input(name="my_int1", party=party1))
my_int2 = SecretInteger(Input(name="my_int2", party=party1))
new_int = my_int1 + my_int2
return [Output(new_int, "my_output", party1)]To output the result of a program, we must provide a name - in this case
my_output
- and a party to whom the output is provided - in this caseparty1
.
Compile, run, and test your Nada program
Use the nada
tool to compile, run and test the program we have just written. More information about the nada tool can be found here.
-
Add your program to
nada-project.toml
config fileFor the nada tool to know about our program, we need to add the following to the
nada-project.toml
config file.[[programs]]
path = "src/secret_addition.py"
name = "secret_addition"
prime_size = 128 -
Run the
nada build
command to compile programs.nada build
This will compile all programs listed in the nada-project.toml file. You will see the binary files (.nada.bin) outputted to the
target/
directory. -
Generate test
nada generate-test --test-name secret_addition_test secret_addition
This uses the nada tool to generate a set of test values, that will be stored in
tests/
. Here secret_addition_test is the name of the test, and secret_addition is the name of the program we want to test. You will notice that the test file (tests/secret_addition_test.yaml
) is automatically populated with3
s everywhere by default. Later, for the test to pass, we will have to change the output from3
to the correct output. -
Run the program with test values
nada run secret_addition_test
Now we run the program. This uses the inputs defined in the test file (tests/secret_addition_test.yaml) and runs the program and prints the result.
-
Test the program
nada test secret_addition_test
Finally, we test the program and it should pass!
Next steps
🧮 Fantastic work! You just created your first Nada project and wrote and tested a Nada program. Now you can move onto the final step: hooking up the secret_addition
Nada program to a blind app, which will be able to store the program, then compute with the program on secret, user provided inputs.