feat(cli): auto-recompiling when aztec test is run

[benesjan]

In this PR I ensure that contracts get automatically recompiled when aztec test is run. To avoid unnecessary compilations I use make command inspired approach of checking timestamp of source files (*.toml and *.nr files) against the timestamp of the oldest artifact in the /target dir (as artifact I consider any *.json file).

Note: By using the oldest timestamp we would get constant recompilation on each run in case the dev placed there some random *.json file.

Question: Does the reviewer think this ^ is fine? Alternatively I could nuke the target dir whenever a recompilation is being run. This feels a bit dangerous though. Another approach would be to predict the artifact name of individual crates and just check against those. This would be the most efficient but it introduces complexity and brittleness in case nargo artifact names change. I think I would keep it as it is for now and come up with solution if someone complains about constant recompilations.

I initially thought I will implement this in the aztec test command but that command is fully implemented in bash. When I had AI implement this the resulting bash was impossible to comprehend so I told it to rewrite in typescript. Given that the aztec test command is calling aztec compile that is implemented in typescript it made sense for this PR to modify only that command. This has the added advantage that it will make bugs in this code way more visible because when a dev runs aztec compile they will either see that the code is getting re-compiled or they will get "No source changes detected, skipping compilation." log. If they modify a contract, run aztec compile and see that nothing got compiled it will be obvious that the thing is broken.

Closes https://linear.app/aztec-labs/issue/F-197/auto-recompile-contracts-on-tests

[benesjan]

• feat(cli): auto-recompiling when aztec test is run #20729 👈 (View in Graphite)
• feat(cli): warning if contract crate has tests #20723
• merge-train/fairies

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[nventuro]

Note: By using the oldest timestamp we would get constant recompilation on each run in case the dev placed there some random *.json file.

Question: Does the reviewer think this ^ is fine? Alternatively I could nuke the target dir whenever a recompilation is being run. This feels a bit dangerous though. Another approach would be to predict the artifact name of individual crates and just check against those. This would be the most efficient but it introduces complexity and brittleness in case nargo artifact names change. I think I would keep it as it is for now and come up with solution if someone complains about constant recompilations.

I agree with your reasoning 100%. The target dir should not be used by users.

I initially thought I will implement this in the aztec test command but that command is fully implemented in bash. When I had AI implement this the resulting bash was impossible to comprehend so I told it to rewrite in typescript.

I believe part of the reason to implement it in bash was to skip loading all of the TS. Did you not notice a huge slowdown due to the importing of ts modules etc?

I do agree with bash being a terrible way to do things, but because the CLI is currently huge this is a problem today. The real solution would be to split the CLI (or to split commands) so that compile test etc are all lightweight.

[benesjan]

Did you not notice a huge slowdown due to the importing of ts modules etc?

@nventuro I just did measurements on the default workspace tests and the version with the check is like 0.3s slower than version without it. Given that to run it all takes like 5s this doesn't seem to be a problem.

[nventuro]

Lovely.

WE HAVE AUTORECOMPILE ON TEST YAY