Design Patterns
This section covers common design patterns and data structures for building efficient and secure Cardano smart contracts, all with Aiken implementations and code examples.
Design Patterns Library
The patterns below come from the Anastasia Labs aiken-design-patterns library (v1.5.0). This is a ready-to-use Aiken library that provides production-grade implementations of common on-chain patterns, so developers can import and use them directly without the overhead of reimplementing the base logic themselves.
| Pattern | Description |
|---|---|
| Stake Validator | Delegate computations to staking scripts using the "withdraw zero trick" for optimized validation |
| UTxO Indexers | Efficient one-to-one and one-to-many mappings between inputs and outputs with O(1) lookups |
| Transaction Level Minting Policy | Couple spend and mint endpoints for single-execution validation logic |
| Validity Range Normalization | Standardize validity range handling to eliminate redundancies |
| Merkelized Validator | Delegate logic to external withdrawal scripts to stay within size limits |
| Parameter Validation | Verify script instances are derived from specific parameterized scripts |
| Linked List | On-chain linked list for storing arbitrarily large collections across UTxOs |
Data Structures
The data structures below are standalone Aiken implementations from separate repositories. They are not part of the aiken-design-patterns library but serve as reference implementations that demonstrate how to use these structures on-chain.
| Data Structure | Description |
|---|---|
| Merkle Tree | Merkle tree for efficient data verification and proof of membership |
| Trie | Distributed trie for scalable on-chain key-value storage across UTxOs |