Dojo Smart Contract Framework

Modern Cairo Smart Contract Development

Dojo's Entity-Component-System (ECS) framework provides a modern approach to building provable onchain applications in Cairo. Instead of writing raw smart contracts, developers can use a database-like schema that is automatically reflected onchain and synced with clients. The framework provides a complete architecture for managing application state using the ECS pattern, which separates data (components/models) from logic (systems), enabling cleaner code organization, easier testing, and more maintainable onchain applications.

Development Tools and Workflow

The Sozo CLI streamlines the entire development lifecycle, handling project initialization, building Cairo contracts with integrated Scarb support, deployment, contract upgrades, and configuration management. Developers define models as Cairo structs with the #[dojo::model] attribute, and systems as functions that operate on those models. The World contract serves as the central registry for all entities, models, and systems, handling permissions and managing component storage using Merkle Patricia Tries via Bonsai.

Testing and Production Deployment

The framework includes comprehensive testing support with integration test helpers, hot reloading during development, and automatic contract validation. Sozo handles the complex process of deploying or upgrading Dojo worlds, deploying the World contract, registering all models and systems, setting up permissions, and handling state migrations when upgrading existing worlds. Applications can be deployed to Starknet mainnet, testnets, or custom Katana sequencers with support for contract upgrading while preserving state.