CellScript - A DSL for Cell-Based Contracts

[phroi]

Hey Arthur, thank you!! I appreciate you introducing CellScript publicly!

From what I understand, it gives CKB and other cell-based systems a higher-level language without abstracting away the cell model. Gotta love the honesty about what already works and what is still maturing!

Looking at the repo, CellScript compiles to ckb-vm-compatible RISC-V assembly or ELF. It also makes resources, shared state, receipts, and explicit Cell effects, plus typed metadata, explicit. That keeps the language tied to the same execution target and cell effects.

As you put it:

@ArthurZhang

This is an early test release. The compiler works. The type checker catches real mistakes. The codegen produces valid ELF. But the stateful protocol semantics are still maturing, and I’m looking for people willing to break things.

So I’d llike to understand where CellScript draws the composability boundary on CKB today.

If protocol A already occupies a cell’s type script slot, what is the intended path for protocol B to build on top of it and add new behavior?

From the repo, I see three paths:

• Build around A with receipt cells or read-only CellDep access via read_ref.
• Later compose multiple verification scripts, which the roadmap still lists under v0.14.
• Combine those two approaches.

Which of those best matches how you think about composability on CKB today? Over time, do you expect CellScript to lean toward composing around existing cells, first-class script-to-script composition, or something else?

See also: [NIP] Allow some Output Lock Scripts to Validate.

Phroi