PyChiquito uses PyO3 and Maturin to expose Rust APIs to Python. Maturin requires the user to locally build a Python virtual environment. Run the following script to create a Python virtual environment, install required packages, and build the project.

# Create a virtual environment
python3 -m venv .env

# Activate the virtual environment
source .env/bin/activate

# Install the required packages
pip install maturin
pip install py_ecc

# Build the project
maturin develop

If the above doesn't work, follow the guide here: https://pyo3.rs/main/getting_started#python

Testing with examples

Run fibonacci.py example file using the following script:

python3 pychiquito/fibonacci.py

If setup is correct, you should see a print out of the parsed Rust AST circuit and TraceWitness. All Halo2 and Chiquito Debug messages for generating and verifying proof should also appear in the terminal.

Technical Design

Python front end -> Python AST object/TraceWitness -> serialize to JSON string -> pass JSON string to Rust using PyO3 -> deserialize JSON string to Chiquito AST/TraceWitness -> store AST in Rust HashMap<UUID, AST> -> pass back UUID to Python -> generate and verify proof from Python with AST UUID and TraceWitness JSON

Notes:

Rust bindings to expose to Python are in lib.rs
Boilerplate functions and Deserialize trait implementations for Rust Chiquito AST, TraceWitness, and their sub types are in frontend.rs of Rust Chiquito: https://github.com/privacy-scaling-explorations/chiquito