Decentralized Compute with Lit Actions
Lit Actions are immutable JavaScript programs that run on a decentralized Lit network. They enable powerful, blockchain-agnostic applications with built-in cryptographic capabilities like signing and encryption.
What Makes Lit Actions Different
Lit Actions are a paradigm shift in decentralized computation, offering a flexible and powerful tool for creating sophisticated decentralized applications. Here's some of what makes them unique:
- JavaScript-Based: They're written in JavaScript, executed in a secure Deno environment, and support the importing of third-party libraries such as @solana/web3.js.
- Built-in Ethers.js and Lit SDK Support: Lit Actions have built-in support for Ethers.js (
v5.7.0) and the Lit SDK, making it easy to interact with Ethereum, other EVM based blockchains, and the Lit Network. - Blockchain Agnostic: Unlike traditional smart contracts, Lit Actions can interact with multiple blockchains, allowing for cross-chain applications and broader interoperability.
- Off-Chain Capabilities: Lit Actions can make HTTP requests and interact directly with off-chain APIs, eliminating the need for complex oracle systems.
- Programmable Signing: Through integration with Programmable Key Pairs (PKPs), Lit Actions enable custom and automated, condition-based signing.
- Decentralized Execution: Lit Actions run on the distributed Lit Network, ensuring high availability and resistance to censorship.
- Stateless but Stateful: While Lit Actions themselves are stateless, they can interact with both on-chain and off-chain state, enabling new application designs not available using existing blockchains like Ethereum.
Example Lit Action Implementation
To illustrate the power and flexibility of Lit Actions, let's consider a practical example:
A Lit Action that signs a transaction only if the reported temperature for a specific area is below a defined threshold.
How it would work:
- The Lit Action fetches temperature data from three different weather APIs.
- The choice of using three APIs is arbitrary, but demonstrates how data from multiple sources can be fetched from within a single Lit Action.
- It calculates the average temperature from the these sources.
- If the average temperature is below a predefined threshold, the Lit Action uses a Programmable Key Pair (PKP) to sign a transaction that transfers tokens on a blockchain.
- The signed transaction can be broadcasted to the blockchain network immediately, or returned for later submission.
This example showcases how Lit Actions can:
- Interact with on and off-chain APIs/RPCs
- Perform computations and make decisions using fetched data
- Use PKPs for conditional signing
Use Cases
Below are a couple examples of how Lit Actions can be leveraged:
- Cross-Chain DeFi: Automate trades or manage portfolios across multiple blockchains.
- Decentralized Access Control: Create dynamic, condition-based access to digital assets or data.
- Automated Governance: Implement complex voting mechanisms or proposal execution across DAOs.
- Decentralized Oracles: Fetch, process, and provide verified off-chain data to smart contracts.
- NFT Utilities: Create dynamic NFT metadata or automate royalty distributions.
- Privacy-Preserving Computations: Perform computation without exposing sensitive data.
Getting Started
You can create your first Lit Action by following this Quick Start guide. Below, you'll find some additional resources and example implementations:
Starter Examples
- Conditional signing: Return a signature when your pre-defined conditions are met.
- Using fetch: Fetch data from other chains or off-chain sources in your Lit Action.
- Access control: Create Lit Action Conditions to permit decryption using off-chain data.
- Importing dependencies: Use external packages in your Lit Action.
Advanced Examples
- Combining signatures within a Lit Action: Sign a message or transaction from within a Lit Action.
- Decrypting within a Lit Action: Decrypt data for processing within a Lit Action.
- Executing a Lit Action on a single node: Execute a Lit Action on a single node instead of across the entire network.
- Broadcast and collect: Execute a Lit Action on each Lit node and aggregate their responses. Useful for performing operations over the return values, such as calculating an average or median.
Resources
- Lit Actions API docs: An overview of all available functionality offered by Lit Actions.
- GetLit CLI: The GetLitCLI simplifies the Lit Action development process.
- Event Listener: Use the Lit Event Listener to create event-based triggers for Lit Actions.
- Developer Guides: Quick examples to get you started.
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